HOWTO: How to Create or Modify a Database in an Application

ID: Q93633

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Visual FoxPro for Windows, version 3.0
Microsoft FoxPro for Windows
Microsoft FoxPro for MS-DOS
Microsoft FoxBASE+ for MS-DOS

SUMMARY

In FoxPro 2.x, to create or modify a database under program control, you can use the COPY TO <name> STRUCTURE EXTENDED, the CREATE <name1> FROM <name2> command.

In Visual FoxPro, you can use the ALTER TABLE command.

Also, you can use the CREATE TABLE command in any version of FoxPro.

MORE INFORMATION

The following code examples create a new database named TEMP that contains one field. The field is named LASTNAME and is 30 characters long.

FoxPro 2.x


   USE anyfile
   COPY TO temp STRUCTURE EXTENDED
   USE temp

   APPEND BLANK
   REPLACE field_name WITH 'lastname'
   REPLACE field_len WITH 30
   REPLACE field_type WITH 'C'
   REPLACE field_dec WITH 0
   CREATE newfile FROM temp

NOTE: To add more than one field to the table, perform another APPEND BLANK and then the REPLACE sequence again.

The COPY STRUCTURE EXTENDED command creates a new database file that describes the structure of the original database. Each record of the new database describes a field of the original database.

NOTE: The COPY STRUCTURE EXTENDED and CREATE FROM commands also work in stand-alone applications created with the FoxPro Distribution Kit.

Visual FoxPro


   USE anyfile
   ALTER TABLE Temp  ADD COLUMN  "Lastname" C(10)

CREATE TABLE Command

You can also use the CREATE TABLE command to modify or create a database. Its syntax is as follows:


   CREATE table <dbf_name>(<fname1> <type> [(<precision>[,
<scale>])[,
      <fname2> ...]])

The following example creates a table with the NAME, ADDR, CITY, ZIP, and SALARY fields, plus a memo field called COMMENTS:


   CREATE Table employee ;
      (name C(20), addr C(30), city C(30), zip C(5), salary N(8,2), ;
         comments M)

Additional query words: VFoxWin 3.00 FoxDos FoxWin 1.00 1.x 2.00 2.10 2.50 2.50a 2.50b 2.60 2.60a dbf

Keywords : kbcode FxtoolGeneral
Version : MS-DOS:; WINDOWS:3.0
Platform : MS-DOS WINDOWS
Issue type : kbhowto