Microsoft Visual FoxPro
Typical VFP9 editing session
Author:	Microsoft Corporation
Latest release:	Visual FoxPro 9.0 Service Pack 2 (SP2) / October 11, 2007
OS:	Microsoft Windows
Platform:	x86 and greater
Available language(s):	IDE: English, German, Spanish Runtime: Above, French, Chinese, Russian, Czech, Korean
Status:	Maintenance mode
Genre:	Database Programming language
License:	Microsoft EULA
Website:	msdn.microsoft.com/vfoxpro

Visual FoxPro is a data-centric object-oriented and procedural programming language produced by Microsoft. It is derived from FoxPro (originally known as FoxBASE) which was developed by Fox Software beginning in 1984. Fox Technologies merged with Microsoft in 1992 and the software acquired further features and the prefix "Visual". The last version of FoxPro (2.6) worked under Mac OS, DOS, Windows, and Unix: Visual FoxPro 3.0, the first "Visual" version, dropped the platform support to only Mac and Windows, and later versions were Windows-only. The current version of Visual FoxPro is COM-based and Microsoft has stated that they do not intend to create a Microsoft .NET version. The ARM architecture (previously, the Advanced RISC Machine, and prior to that Acorn RISC Machine) is a 32-bit RISC processor architecture developed by ARM Limited that is widely used in a number of embedded designs. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Software design is the process that starts from a problem for which there is currently no acceptable (software) solution, and ends when such a solution has been created. ... Microsoft Corporation, (NASDAQ: MSFT, HKSE: 4338) is a multinational computer technology corporation with global annual revenue of US$44. ... Code complete redirects here. ... is the 284th day of the year (285th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... An operating system (OS) is the software that manages the sharing of the resources of a computer and provides programmers with an interface used to access those resources. ... “Windows” redirects here. ... In computing, a platform describes some sort of framework, either in hardware or software, which allows software to run. ... x86 or 80x86 is the generic name of a microprocessor architecture first developed and manufactured by Intel. ... In the world of software development, maintenance mode refers to a point in a programs life when it has reached all of its goals and is generally considered to be complete and bug-free. ... Computer software can be organized into categories based on common function, type, or field of use. ... This article is about computing. ... A programming language is an artificial language that can be used to control the behavior of a machine, particularly a computer. ... A software license is a legal agreement which may take the form of a proprietary or gratuitous license as well as a memorandum of contract between a producer and a user of computer software. ... A software license is a type of proprietary or gratiuitious license as well as a memorandum of contract between a producer and a user of computer software — sometimes called an End User License Agreement (EULA) — that specifies the perimeters of the permission granted by the owner to the... A website (alternatively, Web site or web site) is a collection of Web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that is hosted on one or several Web server(s), usually accessible via the Internet, cell phone or a LAN. A Web page is a document, typically written in HTML... Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a computer programming paradigm in which a software system is modeled as a set of objects that interact with each other. ... This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... A programming language is an artificial language that can be used to control the behavior of a machine, particularly a computer. ... Microsoft Corporation, (NASDAQ: MSFT, HKSE: 4338) is a multinational computer technology corporation with global annual revenue of US$44. ... Cover of the FoxPro 2. ... Cover of the FoxPro 2. ... This article relates to both the original Classic Mac OS as well as Mac OS X, Apples more recent operating system. ... This article is about the family of closely related operating systems for the IBM PC compatible platform. ... “Windows” redirects here. ... Filiation of Unix and Unix-like systems Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX®, sometimes also written as or ® with small caps) is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy. ... Component Object Model (COM) is a platform for software componentry introduced by Microsoft in 1993. ... Microsoft . ...

FoxPro originated as a member of the class of languages commonly referred to as "xBase" languages, which have syntax based on the dBase programming language. Other members of the xBase language family include Clipper and Recital. (A history of the early years of xBase can be found in the dBASE entry.) xBase is the generic term for all programming languages that derive from the original dBASE (Ashton-Tate) programming language and database formats. ... dBASE III The correct title of this article is dBASE. The initial letter is capitalized because of technical restrictions. ... Clipper is a computer programming language that is used to create software programs that originally operated primarily under DOS. Although it is a powerful general-purpose programming language, it was primarily used to create database/business programs. ... dBASE III The correct title of this article is dBASE. The initial letter is capitalized because of technical restrictions. ...

Visual FoxPro, commonly abbreviated as VFP, is tightly integrated with its own relational database engine, which extends FoxPro's xBase capabilities to support SQL query and data manipulation. Unlike most database management systems, Visual FoxPro is a full-featured, dynamic programming language that does not require the use of an additional general-purpose programming environment. It can be used to write not just traditional "fat client" applications, but also middleware and web applications. SQL (IPA: or ), commonly expanded as Structured Query Language, is a computer language designed for the retrieval and management of data in relational database management systems, database schema creation and modification, and database object access control management. ... A database management system (DBMS) is a computer program (or more typically, a suite of them) designed to manage a database, a large set of structured data, and run operations on the data requested by numerous users. ... Dynamic programming language is a term used broadly in computer science to describe a class of high level programming languages that execute at runtime many common behaviors that other languages might perform during compilation, if at all. ... This article or section cites very few or no references or sources. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... In software engineering, a web application is an application delivered to users from a web server over a network such as the World Wide Web or an intranet. ...

Recent History

In late 2002, some community members demonstrated that Visual FoxPro can run on Linux under the Wine Windows compatibility suite. In 2003, this led to complaints by Microsoft: it was claimed that the deployment of runtime FoxPro code on non-Windows machines violates the End User License Agreement.^[1] This article is about operating systems that use the Linux kernel. ... For other uses, see Wine (disambiguation). ... A software license is a type of proprietary or gratiuitious license as well as a memorandum of contract between a producer and a user of computer software — sometimes called an End User License Agreement (EULA) — that specifies the perimeters of the permission granted by the owner to the...

Rumors suggesting that Microsoft intends to end support for FoxPro have been common since Microsoft's acquisition of the product, despite the product having one of the longest support timeframes for a Microsoft product (extended support until 2015). In March 2007, Microsoft announced "that there will be no VFP 10"^[2], thus making VFP9 (released to manufacturing on December 17, 2004) the last commercial VFP release from Microsoft. The support of Version 9 is ongoing with a service pack that was released December 8, 2005. At the time of the end of life announcement, work on the next release codenamed Sedna which was built on top of the VFP9 codebase had already begun. "Sedna" is a set of addons to VFP 9.0 of XBase components to support a number of interoperability scenarios with various Microsoft technologies including SQL Server 2005, .NET Framework, Windows Vista, Office 2007, Windows Search and Team Foundation Server (TFS). December 17 is the 351st day of the year (352nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 342nd day of the year (343rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... you are abunch of bull | bgcolour=#FFFFC0 | name=90377 Sedna | image= | caption= Sedna is located in the center of the green circle | discovery=yes | discoverer=M. Brown, C. Trujillo, D. Rabinowitz | discovered=November 14, 2003 | mp_name=90377 Sedna | alt_names= | mp_category=Trans-Neptunian object | epoch=September 26, 1990 (JD 2448160. ... Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system (RDBMS) produced by Microsoft. ... The Microsoft . ... Team Foundation Server (commonly abbreviated TFS) is a Microsoft offering for source control, data collection, reporting, and project tracking , intended for collaborative software development projects. ...

On March 1, 2006, Microsoft released a Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Sedna. Service Pack 2 for VFP 9.0 was released on 11 October, 2007. ^[3] The most recent release of "Sedna" was the CTP in June 2007. Microsoft plans to release Sedna under the Shared source license on the CodePlex site. Microsoft has clarified that the VFP core will still remain closed source. VFP 9.0 is the end of the Microsoft VFP line, in spite of the fact that there remains a large and vibrant FoxPro user base. Microsoft will continue supporting VFP through 2015. is the 60th day of the year (61st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Community Technology Preview (CTP), is a Microsoft software preview release. ... The three letter acronym CTP has several meanings: Certified Treasury Professional Computer to plate, an imaging or prepress technology in modern lithographic printing Confederación de Trabajadores del Perú Compton, California Republican Turkish Party (Cumhuriyetçi Türk Partisi) Cambridge Technology Partners, a software service firm, now part of Novell... For other uses, see June (disambiguation). ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... Shared source is Microsoft’s framework for sharing computer program source code with individuals and organizations. ... CodePlex is an open source project hosting website from Microsoft. ...

In December 2005, VFP broke into the top 20 on TIOBE's Programming Community Index for the first time. In March 2007 it is at position 19, making it a "B" language. As of August 7, 2007 it dropped into position 22.

On March 13 2007^[4] Microsoft stated that it will not be releasing its Visual FoxPro development software past version 9.0. Microsoft will continue to support the Visual FoxPro core until 2015 with standard support through January 2010 and extended support through January 2015 via the developer tools life-cycle support plan.^[5]

Meanwhile, some of the FoxPro-related technology can be seen in other Microsoft products such as SQL Server, Team Foundation Server and various portions of the .Net Framework.

In late March 2007 a grassroots campaign was started by the Spanish-speaking FoxPro community at MasFoxPro (MoreFoxPro in English) to sign a petition to Microsoft to continue updating Visual FoxPro or release it to the community as Open Source. On April 3, 2007 the movement was noted by the technical press.^[6] A grassroots political movement is one driven by the constituents of a community. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ...

Also on April 3, 2007 Microsoft responded to the petitioner's requests with this statement from Alan Griver:

"We're very aware of the FoxPro community and that played a large part in what we announced on March 13th. It's never an easy decision to announce that we're not going to release another version of a product and it's one that we consider very carefully.

"We're not announcing the end of FoxPro: Obviously, FoxPro applications will continue to work. By some of our internal estimates, there are more applications running in FoxPro 2.6 than there are in VFP and FoxPro 2.6 hasn't been supported in many years. Visual FoxPro 9 will be supported by Microsoft through 2015.

"For Microsoft to continue to evolve the FoxPro base, we would need to look at creating a 64-bit development environment and that would involve an almost complete rewrite of the core product. We've also invested in creating a scalable database with SQL Server, including the freely available SQL Server Express Edition. As far as forming a partnership with a third-party is concerned, we've heard from a number of large FoxPro customers that this would make it impossible for them to continue to use FoxPro since it would no longer be from an approved vendor. We felt that putting the environment into open source on CodePlex, which balances the needs of both the community and the large customers, was the best path forward."

Version information

Operating system compatibility

Information on Executable Files

Code samples

Hello World example:

 MESSAGEBOX("Hello World") 

Object

 loForm = CREATEOBJECT("HiForm") loForm.Show(1) DEFINE CLASS HiForm AS Form AutoCenter = .T. Caption = "Hello, World" ADD OBJECT lblHi as Label WITH ; Caption = "Hello, World!" ENDDEFINE 

 loMine = CREATEOBJECT("MyClass") ? loMine.cProp1 && This will work. (Double-ampersand marks an end-of-line comment) ? loMine.cProp2 && Program Error: Property CPROP2 is not found. ? loMine.MyMethod1() && This will work. ? loMine.MyMethod2() && Program Error: Property MYMETHOD2 is not found. DEFINE CLASS MyClass AS Custom cProp1 = "My Property" && This is a public property HIDDEN cProp2 && This is a private (hidden) property PROCEDURE Init() && Class constructor This.cProp2 = "This is a hidden property." ENDPROC PROCEDURE MyMethod1() * This is a public method, calling a hidden method that returns * the value of a hidden property. RETURN This.MyMethod2() ENDPROC HIDDEN PROCEDURE MyMethod2() && This is a private (hidden) method RETURN This.cProp2 ENDPROC ENDDEFINE 

Data handling

 && Create a table CREATE TABLE randData (iData I) && Populate with random data using xBase and SQL DML commands FOR i = 1 TO 50 APPEND BLANK REPLACE iData WITH (RAND() * 100) INSERT INTO randData (iData) VALUES (RAND() * 100) ENDFOR && Place a structural index on the data INDEX ON iData TAG iData CLOSE ALL && Display sorted data using xBase-style commands USE randData SET ORDER TO iData GO TOP LIST NEXT 10 && First 10 SKIP 81 LIST NEXT 10 && Last 10 CLOSE ALL && Browse sorted data using SQL DML commands SELECT * ; FROM randData ; ORDER BY iData DESCENDING 

ODBC Access using SQL Passthrough

 && Connect to an ODBC data source LOCAL nHnd nHnd = SQLCONNECT ("ODBCDSN", "user", "pwd") && Execute a SQL command LOCAL nResult nResult = SQLEXEC (nHnd, "USE master") IF nResult < 0 MESSAGEBOX ("MASTER database does not exist!") RETURN ENDIF && Retrieve data from the remote server and stores it in && a local data cursor nResult = SQLEXEC (nHnd, "SELECT * FROM authors", "QAUTHORS") && Update a record in a remote table using parameters LOCAL cAuthorID, cAuthorName cAuthorID = "1001" cAuthorName = "New name" nResult = SQLEXEC (nHnd, "UPDATE authors SET auth_name = ?cAuthorName WHERE auth_id = ?cAuthorID") && Close the connection SQLDISCONNECT(nHnd) 

Some Character Functions

 local lcmyvar as character local lcmyvar2 as character local lnmyvar3 as number &&Puts the right two characters of string into variable lcmyvar = RIGHT("mystring", 2) &&Puts the left two characters of string into variable lcmyvar2 = LEFT("mystring", 2) &&Put length of character expression into variable lnmyvar3 = LEN("mystring") 

"IF" Statement

 local lnmyvar as number local lnmyvar2 as number lnmyvar = 5 lnmyvar2 = 12 IF lnmyvar = lnmyvar2 .or. lnmyvar2 - lnmyvar = 7 Messagebox("Good Deal") ENDIF 

Beta code names

• VFP 3 - Taz
• VFP 5 - RoadRunner
• VFP 6 - Tahoe
• VFP 7 - Sedona
• VFP 8 - Toledo
• VFP 9 - Europa
• VFP Next - Sedna

“Taz” redirects here. ... ... Lake Tahoe is a large freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada mountains of the United States. ... For the Kia Motors Sedona automobile, see Kia Carnival // Sedona (pronounced ) is a city and community that straddles the county line between Coconino and Yavapai counties in the northern Verde Valley region of the U.S. state of Arizona. ... Nickname: Location in the state of Ohio Coordinates: , Country United States State Ohio County Lucas Founded 1833 Government  - Mayor Carty Finkbeiner (D) Area  - City 84. ... Apparent magnitude: 5. ... you are abunch of bull | bgcolour=#FFFFC0 | name=90377 Sedna | image= | caption= Sedna is located in the center of the green circle | discovery=yes | discoverer=M. Brown, C. Trujillo, D. Rabinowitz | discovered=November 14, 2003 | mp_name=90377 Sedna | alt_names= | mp_category=Trans-Neptunian object | epoch=September 26, 1990 (JD 2448160. ...

External links

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Image File history File links Broom_icon. ...

Microsoft pages

• Main Visual FoxPro Microsoft page
• MSDN FoxPro support board
• VFP's online help file
• Microsoft VFP 9 support
• Visual FoxPro Essential Downloads page

Other pages

• Visual FoxPro Wiki The biggest repository of FoxPro information (written in VFP)
• Board to get help for Visual FoxPro in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French
• Board to get help for Visual FoxPro in Spanish
• (German) www.DFPUG.de The biggest Usergroup, with lots of articles and information in their Sharepoint Portal, mostly German, but lots in English too
• A site devoted to the history of FoxPro
• ActiveVFP Open Source, free FoxPro web development framework
• Hentzenwerke Publishing - noted publisher of books on Visual FoxPro
• Visual FoxPro news, updated regularly
• Foxstuff (collection of technical articles relating to Visual FoxPro)
• FoxPro Summary for quick references and beginners
• Virtual FoxPro User Group - free online support resource
• ProFox mailing list
• Active FoxPro Pages FoxPro based replacement for ASP
• Programming Windows OS in Visual FoxPro Online reference
• www.foxite.com Free online Visual FoxPro Community
• VFPx A Visual FoxPro Community effort to create open source add-ons for VFP 9.0

References