HOWTO: Programmatically Copy the Current Record to a New Record

• Microsoft Visual FoxPro for Windows, versions 3.0, 3.0b, 5.0, 5.0a
• Pro Edition of Microsoft Visual FoxPro for Mac, version 3.0
• Microsoft FoxPro for Windows, versions 2.5, 2.5a, 2.5b, 2.6, 2.6a
• Microsoft FoxPro for Macintosh, version 2.6a
• Microsoft FoxPro for MS-DOS, versions 2.0, 2.5, 2.5a, 2.5b, 2.6, 2.6a
• Microsoft FoxPro for UNIX, version 2.6

SUMMARY

This article illustrates how to programmatically copy the contents of a selected record into a new record in the same table.

MORE INFORMATION

The following code may be used in either a program (.prg) file or interactively in the FoxPro Command window.

NOTE: The code in Step 1 creates a new table used to provide sample data for the rest of the steps that illustrate how to copy an existing record. However, any table may be used provided that a duplicate record may be added and no index primary key is violated. Primary key indexes are only available in versions of Visual FoxPro.

1. Copy the following code to a test program and run it to create Testcopy.dbf that contains five sample records:

         ***** Table setup for TEST of record copy *****
         CREATE TABLE 'testcopy.dbf' ;
         (FNAME C(12), LNAME C(10), SEQUENCE I(2))
   

         ***** Add five records for testing *****
         INSERT INTO testcopy (FNAME, LNAME, SEQUENCE) ;
         VALUES ('Rutherford B.', 'Hayes', 19)
         INSERT INTO testcopy (FNAME, LNAME, SEQUENCE) ;
         VALUES ('James A.', 'Garfield', 20)
         INSERT INTO testcopy (FNAME, LNAME, SEQUENCE) ;
         VALUES ('Chester A.', 'Arthur', 21)
         INSERT INTO testcopy (FNAME, LNAME, SEQUENCE) ;
         VALUES ('Grover', 'Cleveland', 22)
         INSERT INTO testcopy (FNAME, LNAME, SEQUENCE) ;
         VALUES ('Benjamin', 'Harrison', 23)
   

2. This step shows one way that may be used to locate the record to copy.

         LOCATE FOR sequence = 22
   

3. The following code copies and creates a duplicate record.

   NOTE: The MEMO clause used below is needed only if there is a memo field. The contents of a General field will not be copied.

         SCATTER MEMVAR MEMO   && Copies contents of current record to memory.
         APPEND BLANK          && Creates a new blank record.
         GATHER MEMVAR MEMO    && Copies contents from memory to new record.
   
   

4. BROWSE the table to view the records. Note that record number 6 is a duplicate of record number 4.

REFERENCES

For information about copying a general field, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q113443
   TITLE     : How to Copy a General Field from One Record to Another