Dear Friends,

I am having an application developed for a client in dBase III Plus. As the Windows OS is slowly removing support for DOS based application, it is becoming difficult to maintain the dBase III application. I would like to migrate my apps to some suitable software.

I am looking for software with minimum development and migration time as also ease of operations and maintenance (even for clients).

Can anybody guide me on this ?

There are a number of possibilities open to you and your decision may be influenced by a variety of factors.

If you want the quickest and easiest conversion, I'd recommend Visual Foxpro 9. It has the most syntax in common with your old code and it is a current generation product.

However if your choice were determined by which might be the smartest long term choice for your business, you might want to consider going to a different language.

While Visual Foxpro is an excellent choice, the number of developers is diminishing (still quite a few, but diminishing) with Microsoft's announcement that they will not be moving forward with VFP. That does not in any way make VFP obsolete, but it is a point to consider.

If another language were to be chosen, then the conversion would be considerably more difficult.

Good Luck

Dear jrbblr

Thanks. Any idea about the new windows based dBase versions.

visual foxpro is the closest to xBase.. but as jrbbldr says its not going to be supported in the future

that means that any applicatiion you write may already be partially obsolecent

Personally if I were you I'd be looking at something else, and accept that there is a learning curve to understand the new db environment, develop and testit, and also your users.

as to what that developemnt environment is I'll leave it up to you. my experience would suggest MS Access, but thats because I sue Access on a regular basis.

you could drop the db environemtn and switch to a web based system eg PHP/MySQL.. heck you probably couls use PHP with dBase III tables. But I serioulsy wouldn't sugest yu develop an applciation or a web interface unless you thoroughly understand web security and attacks

"I am looking for software with minimum development and migration time"

Well changing to any other non-dBase-like language such as Access, VB, etc. will not meet that requirement. Having code which is largely transportable goes a long way towards achieving that goal.

"ease of operations and maintenance (even for clients)"

That is largely a matter of what tools/utilities you have included in the application to make it easy for the clients and yourself. If there are none, then the problem is not in the language, but instead in the shortcomings of the application.

"Any idea about the new windows based dBase versions."

I haven't used any versions of dBase for MANY, MANY years once Foxpro came on the scene and blew dBase and Clipper out of the water. Consequently I cannot speak to its current level of functionality. But there cannot be a very large current user-base. With that in mind, when you need assistance how much support can you expect to find in the manner of other developers and/or support from users on forums like this.

Going to another language (other than a very similar one) will entail your becoming intimately familiar with ALL of the functionality of the current application and how it is being accomplished and then learning a totally new language well enough that you can create that same functionality with a totally different syntax and possibly different approach.

Good Luck

You could always try dBase Plus (www.dbase.com)

This is dBase for windows and is supported by a company called dataBI who took over rights to dBase from Borland a few years back. The newsgroup/forums hosted by dBase are reasonably active and pretty good so you may also find some help on how to migrate from there too.

I think you'll find you will still need to do some work in terms of the user interface but the database tables should be immediately accessible.

Dear Friend.

The world knows that FoxBase+ is a very good substitute for dBase III+. But I prefere FoxPro 1.02. Try it. You will be entirely satisfied. If you would like more help about this topic or if you want me to convert some programs for you on a professional basis. please contact me on HarjaspalJaneja@yahoo.com

Yes, it is very easy. All versions of FoxPro from Fox Software's Version 1 through 2.0 and Microsoft's Version 2.0 through 2.5/2.6 are backwardly compatible with dBase III+. Personally, I would prefer Fox Software's FoxPro 1.02 for this kind of work. It is small, compact and efficient.
Good Luck

I cant say if there is a straight forward database migration tool for XBase code into the newer DBMS, But if you are willing to experiment a bit, it may not be as difficult or time consuming as you think. Especially with many visual tools that are around. No I don't intend to promote my link I'm being generic.

I have been looking in detail.
I started with DBXL, a dBase III compatible DOS databse application. I still have it and have converted it to become year 2000 comliant.
I next migrated to Clipper 5, using DBXL as a console debugging tool and later comiling in Clipper 5. I now have clipper 5.3
For migration to Windows enviroment:
1. Alaska software. There is a downloadable trial version.
Welcome to Alaska Software
The paid version costs over $500
2. Another paid product is Flagship.
FlagShip Home Page is the home page.
There is free trial version and paid version.
Both of these are promoted as very good and a competition to SQL servers.

The following are free offerings.
3. Harbour. Harbour Project - Home
This is the latest in the Clipper compatible compilers and has active support.
You can add to it windows features and functions using
a. HbWxW Freeware for Borland BCC 5.5 - available at
http://harbour.dlf.interia.pl/hbwxw_bc.zip as a free package
HbWxW Freeware for • for Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 - available at
http://harbour.dlf.interia.pl/hbwxw_vc.zip as a free package
b. HwGUI is a GUI library for Harbour/xHarbour
HwGUI
Currently Win32 version of HwGUI supports 5 C compilers:
Borland C, MS Visual C, Mingw, Pelles C and Open Watcom C.
A free project manager, xMate Project Manager is also available
c. Look also at New Technology Kit for Windows features with Harbour.
d. The 2007 release at Home - www.ooHG.org - Object Oriented Harbour GUI is also worth considering.
It has Object oriented GUI.
4. All above also applies to xharbour. There seems to be more active support and developement at xHarbour.org
They have free xharbout available (year 2009) and the windows attachments mentioned above are available for it.
5. Visual xharbour is yet another windows XP connected harbour.exe all ready to program in.
Visual xHarbour is available from Sourceforge. and so far seems to me the best choice for xBase (dBase) programming with windows. It also is completely free.

So without having to migrate you can just upgrade to Windows XP level softwarw with networking and server facilities.

I think Visual FoxPro is the closest thing you have. It may still not be possible to simply move your existing dbase code, but your changes may be minimal. Until you hit the dreaded @Say for some special dot matrix printers or 80 col char screens.

I remember helping somebody with migrating and then they bought a laser printer and wanted to use fancy looking fonts in reports. I simply threw up my hands. You're better off starting from scratch, you could possibly move your existing code to VisualFoxPro and then start salvaging all useful procs into libs of some kind.

BTW your tool list looks great, keep posting what you found.

Microsoft is moving from Windows XP to Windows 7. They have announced that there will not be any support for Visual foxpro.
Let us not forget the history. dBase III and later dBase IV were products of Ashton-Tate and was such a good database system that there were copies including Clipper which was leader in the field for quite a while, and Foxpro was just another competitor. Micrsoft bought up Foxpro mainly to kill dBase IV. They then switched to development only in C and in Visual Basic, ignoring the strong connection between C and Clipper. The market swung towards SQL databases and Clipper died.
Today this product - Clipper (incidentally also Foxpro) is being kept alive by xBase fans. There is/was Harbour and now xHarbour. There are at least 4 different Windows (Visual) interfaces with current releases as late as February, 2010. These are all 32 bit applications compatible with Windows XP Pro. Harbour and xHarbour are completely compatible with Clipper, and with minor modifications your Foxpro programs will run fine under a Windows or Linux enviroment. You will have to make changes to reflect the Windows style - which is event driven, while windows attends to all the tasks. That is nothing to do with any weaknesses in your programming, and everything to do with Windows concept of programming - whether you use Visual Basic or xHarbour with windows support.
xharbour and Harbour come with compilation for Borland BCC 5.5 and also versions for Visual C, Pelles, MinGW etc. The Windows interfaces I have seen come with both Windows XP and Linux support and some also with Mac support. AND IT IS ALL FREE.
Today, i.e. in 2010, it boils down to whether or not you want to continue with xBase or switch to SQL. Even in this area you will get support in xBase for SQL, which means you can continue programming in xBase language and put out your database under a SQL server.

Well I started using dbase in the late 80's. Then went to Clipper (summer 87). Since then I have programmed in clipper (and RPG). When I started doing conversions several years ago, I looked at a bunch of products. And finally decided on Clarion. I started with the Dos version of clarion, and I was very pleased with it. So I upgraded and now Clarion is at version 7.
You can use the dbf file driver, or change to virtually any backend you want. I've developed 1000's of apps in Clipper and the transition to Clarion was easy.

Now... I've heard a lot of good things about xharbour. But I do not have experience with it. Hope this helps....
Ron

You have a point there. Because Harbour and xHarbour are free and Open source they have th eproblem of stability and support which clarion would not have. On the other hand, there are Clipper compatible paid products like Alsaka and Flagship (which I have not tried) and they are available for 1-3 month trial.

I have only read about Clarion, and what I read looked very good.
Yesterday I was looking at some sampels of Harbour with Minigui - a combo that produces some impressive GUI Apps.

Whatever we do, the trend is towards .net applications with hefty software distributions. For Microsoft enthusiasts, 750MB of CD was not enough and they are going over to distributions of various software on 4MB DVDs.
Having started with a 64K (NOT 64M) microcomputer I can't understand the trend towards these hefty software products.

Clarion is jumping on the Microsfot bandwagon, so you are safe there.

you would better start with a 32 bits otherwhise you will be in trouble within some years.