Table & Alias Names Not Always the Same in FoxPro for Mac

ID: Q110480

The information in this article applies to:

• Microsoft Visual FoxPro for Macintosh, version 3.0b
• Microsoft FoxPro for Macintosh, version 2.5b

SUMMARY

In FoxPro for Windows and FoxPro for MS-DOS, the alias of a table is often the same as the name of the table. Therefore, many FoxPro commands and functions appear to work on the table name even though they actually work on the alias name. (These commands are listed below.) This can cause confusion for FoxPro for Macintosh users because alias and table names are sometimes different in FoxPro for Macintosh.

To verify a database's alias name in FoxPro for Macintosh, use the ALIAS() function. For example:

   USE "Macintosh HD:Long Database Name.DBF"
   ? ALIAS()

MORE INFORMATION

FoxPro transforms Macintosh-like table names to Windows/MS-DOS-like aliases, with an underscore (_) substituted for the spaces allowed in Macintosh filenames. For example, in FoxPro for Macintosh, the table name "my table" would have the alias "my_table".

Several functions that use work area aliases work only on alias names as rendered by FoxPro. For example, "my table" has the alias "my_table"; thus, FLOCK("my_table") works, but FLOCK("my table") generates an error.

In addition to the underscore substitution for spaces, filenames longer than 10 characters are truncated to the first 10 characters.

The following is a list of FoxPro functions and commands that operate with alias names rather than table names:

   ALIAS()                         ORDER()
   BOF()                           RECCOUNT()
   CDX()                           RECNO()
   DBF()                           RECSIZE()
   DELETED()                       RELATION()
   EOF()                           RLOCK()
   FCOUNT()                        SEEK()
   FIELD()                         SELECT <specified work area>
   FILTER()                        SET RELATION
   FSIZE()                         SET SKIP
   FLOCK()                         SKIP
   GO/GOTO                         SYS(14)
   JOIN                            SYS(2021)
   KEY()                           TAG()
   LOCK()                          TARGET()
   LUPDATE()                       UNLOCK
   MDX()                           USED()
   NDX()