INFO: IntelliSense and Visual FoxPro 6.0

ID: Q193404

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Visual FoxPro for Windows, version 6.0

SUMMARY

IntelliSense, or Automatic Statement Completion, is the ability of an editor to complete design time function declarations, object references and other editing functions. This ability, which is integrated into other Visual Studio components, is not natively available in Visual FoxPro.

MORE INFORMATION

In order for IntelliSense to work, the editor needs to know explicitly, at design time, the referenced object type. Since Visual FoxPro is a weakly typed language, this information is not available during design time and is not available until run-time, with some exceptions. In order for the editor to know what object to examine for the appropriate methods and properties, a type declaration similar to the following is needed:


   PUBLIC oForm
   LOCAL oADO, oRef

With the following statements, Visual FoxPro cannot resolve the references until run-time. The class for "myForm" actually depends upon the SET CLASSLIB setting at run-time. Similarly, oForm and oADO could potentially change on subsequent executions of that line of code. You cannot be sure what the references are until the code actually executes. Here is an example:


   oForm = CREATEOBJECT('myForm') && Visual FoxPro Class
   oADO  = oForm.myRecordSet      && Component Object Model (COM) Class
   oRef  = oADO                   && Unknown object reference

In Visual FoxPro, without a strongly typed language, we cannot know at design time that "oForm" is derived from the "myForm" class. In other Visual Studio languages, such as Visual C++, Visual Basic, and Visual J++, the strong language typing gives the editor and compiler system the ability to make use of IntelliSense.

As an alternative to having native IntelliSense, there is a public domain utility called SuperClass available for download from the following World Wide Web URL:

http://www.classx.com

This utility makes IntelliSense functionality available within Visual FoxPro. On the toolbar, click Tools and then locate the SuperClass utility.

NOTE: The third-party contact information included in this article is provided to help you find the technical support you need. This contact information is subject to change without notice. Microsoft in no way guarantees the accuracy of this third-party contact information.

REFERENCES

Visual C++ User's Guide in the Microsoft Developer Network Library 6.0.

Additional query words: kbVFp600 kbMiscTools

Keywords :
Version : WINDOWS:6.0
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbinfo