>I had someone post a message on my forum asking if foxpro was a true RDBMS. I would like to answer him. But I don't think I have the full answer to his question! Could someone please look at his message and reply with a knowlegeable answer.
>
>Here is the link.
>http://www.planot.com/forum/display_topic_threads.asp?ForumID=31&TopicID=68&PagePosition=1
>
>Thanks

Tim,

VFP is NOT an RDBMS. It is a very sophisticated file management system that is very capable of implementing relational designs. The Codd rule zero for RDBMSs is that the developer would never need to interact with the physical storeage of the data but rather would always interact using the relational approach (SQL). The simple fact that we deal with DBF/FPT/CDX issues is what prevents VFP from being considered an RDBMS.

As for the "true" keyword is your question, well that is another issue. If you use Codd's rules for an RDBMS to make an evaluation then there is no true RDBMS available on any platform today. None of the candidates meet all of Codd's requirements. For example, according to Codd's rules the data should only be able to be manipulated using the relational tools (SQL) yet every product provides direct access to the tables in one way or another.

So, the complete answer to the question is "No VFP is not a true RDBMS and neither is anything else."