Hi Steve
>Macro substition is an implimentation detail, that isn't necessarily necessary in other languages. For example, it is useful in VFP for constructing portions of a SQL SELECT statement. In .NET, the entire select statement is put into a string, so it is not relevant.
I haven't said that it's necessary, only that it cannot be done (AFAIK).
And I find very comfortable (in VFP) to know that if you need to do macro substitution, you can easily do it.
for example:
LOCAL a, b, iloop
a="thisform.text"
iloop=3
FOR ixi=1 TO iloop
b=a+TRANSFORM(ixi)
&b..backcolor=255
endfor
how can be done in .NET? (consider that iloop is a variable)
>
>That being said, the ability of VFP to run a .prg file on the fly, even without the development environment, does give a lot of flexibility. A system could be designed so that certain hooks could be modified by the end users of a product, by allowing them to modify certain .prg files. That opens all sorts of issues regarding security and ways of accidently breaking the system.
>
>At runtime, a VFP program can create its own code, on the fly, and run it. That's cool.
This can be done in .NET, never done yet, but read this paper:
http://www.west-wind.com/presentations/dynamicCode/DynamicCode.htmAgain, it's not "easy" like VFP, but can be done.
Franco
