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I work for a company that uses a program that uses Foxpro as its database.

I'm actually a little bit confused if Visual FoxPro is just a DB or its a programming lagnauge + database combined.

I want to create some software to integrate with it, but I just need to manipulate the date in the database (As i do not have access to the source).

Is there a SQL Management Studio equalivelent to Visual FoxPro, and can I see the tables and data by looking at the Database files? or is it all integrated some how into the programming and I would need the source to manipulate it?

Michael
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  • You can use Foxpro database through the ADO.NET ODBC or OleDb providers. Google around for a connectionstring. – H H May 11 '12 at 11:36
  • Do you really just need to update a single date value? – Joshua Drake May 11 '12 at 11:39
  • FYI, to clear up your confusion, FoxPro is similar to Access, except its based on XBase. FoxPro is a database management system that uses XBase as its programming language for creating database-specific applications. You can either use it as just a database, but most people write the entire application in FoxPro – Icemanind May 12 '12 at 04:03
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    It's not similar to Access. – Alan B Dec 19 '14 at 15:48

4 Answers4

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The best SQL Management Studio equivalent would be the VFP IDE. However, as a C# developer you might prefer to use LINQPad so that you can work with the data using LINQ and not have to know anything about the VFP syntax. As far as writing some C# code to manipulate VFP data… I would suggest checking out LINQ to VFP and the VFP EF Provider.

Full disclosure: I wrote the LINQPad Provider, LINQ to VFP, and the VFP EF Provider so I might be a bit bias :)

Tom Brothers
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Visual Foxpro is both a programming language AND a database all wrapped into one. If you can get Visual Foxpro, you can do you own programming and directly work with opening the tables, updating them, etc as you need.

Additionally, Microsoft has an OleDbProvider that can hook up to VFP tables and do all your common select/insert/update/delete functionality too. So, that said, you can use whatever .net you might be comfortable with. I personally use C# and the Microsoft OleDbProvider and have built some websites with it and also desktop apps too, all going directly to the tables. The only issue is IF any of the tables are encrypted using a third-party encryption tool.

I and others have had many posts on how to connect with VFP to select, insert and update data, so you can obviously feel free to look that up. I would start by using tag search such as

C# VFP OleDb

And you'll always be able to ask again here to get answers when you get stuck :)

DRapp
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Without FoxPro itself (think access) you are messing about with ODBC and writing it all yourself. or better yet (apparently) there's an OLEDB provider for it.

Sm OLE DB Provider for Visual FoxPro

and like @Tim Medora, I'm sorry.

Tony Hopkinson
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No need for anyone to say 'I'm sorry' and as Alan B said, there are more FoxPro apps out there than most folks will ever realize. I for one have made a good living out of converting MS Access apps to FoxPro due to Access cratering with large data files.

FoxPro is both a Database (Think RDBMS systems) and a great rapid application development tool. You can easily read the tables through the OleDbProvider, and if you're using it as a front end you can easily connect to ANY of the main Databases. I personally have apps that connect to MySql, Sql-Server.

Writing an application in C# to read and return the data in FoxPro tables is actually quite simple if you're using Visual Studio 2010 and Tom gives some excellent links for info on how to accomplish what you're trying to do

Hank Wilson
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