Introduction and Features of FoxPro

Microsoft Visual FoxPro (VFP) is an environment of Object-oriented programming (OOPs). The relational database engine is available in the Microsoft Visual FoxPro (VFP). It was developed by Microsoft in the year of 1984. But it was ended in the year 2007. But it can still be downloaded by the database application. 

It was previously named FoxBASE, and then it was later known as FoxPro in the year 1994. It became a vibrant product category before the market shifted towards relational database management systems (RDBMS) and Microsoft SQL servers. 

 It is elementary to develop an application by the use of three tools provided by Microsoft Visual FoxPro (VFP). Also, with the help of Microsoft Visual FoxPro (VFP), we can easily create a new database, and we can efficiently perform that new database with the other new database. 

There are so many versions available in the Microsoft version of FoxPro. These version are DBASE I, DBASE II, DBASE III, DBASE III+, DBASE IV, FOXBASE, FOXBASE +, FOXPRO.

Features of Foxpro

Visual FoxPro 9.0 is a great tool for building database solutions of all sizes. Its data-centric, object-oriented language offers developers a robust set of tools for building database applications for the desktop, client-server environments, or the Web. Developers will have the necessary tools to manage data from organizing tables of information, running queries, and creating an integrated relational database management system (DBMS) to programming a fully-developed data management application for end users. The FoxPro provides so many features. These features are as follows. 

1. FoxPro works as an interactive database management system.
2. FoxPro provides the support of Object Oriented Programming languages (OOPs).
3. FoxPro provides the environment for the development of the application. 
4. With the help of FoxPro, we can easily create the database.
5. We can also add or remove any data from the database with the help of FoxPro.
6. It also provides the feature of editing existing data that are present in the database.
7. It can enhance the interface of users' applications by controlling and improving image support.
8.  Extensible new output architecture provides precision control of report data output and formatting. Design with multiple detail banding, text rotation, and report chaining. Output reports supported include in XML, HTML, image formats, and customizable multi-page print preview window. Backward compatible with existing Visual FoxPro reports.

Advantages of Microsoft Visual FoxPro (VFP)

Microsoft Visual FoxPro (VFP) has some advantages. These advantages are as follows.

1. It provides the support and syntax of Object Oriented Programming Languages (OOPs).
2. It has a backing of visual tools.
3. It also provides the aid of a multimedia database.
4. And it is less expensive in comparison to other products.

Disadvantages of Microsoft Visual FoxPro (VFP)

Microsoft Visual FoxPro (VFP) has some disadvantages. These disadvantages are as follows.

1. It does not support low-level programming languages.
2. It is scalability in nature.
3. It supports the character only.

Data Types used in FoxPro

1. Characters

It can support all types of alphabets, i.e. A-Z, a-z. It can support all kinds of arithmetic operations. It can only store a maximum of 250 characters.

2. Numbers

It can only store all types of decimal and numerical values. It can keep up to 20 decimal values.

3. Float

With the help of this data type, we can store only floating values. It has a default width value of 10.

4. Date

With the help of this data type, we can store only date values. 

5. Logical

With the help of this data type, we can store Boolean values like true or false and yes or no.

6. Memo

With the help of this data type, we can store a large amount of data like sound, text, audio, image and video. It is also a powerful data type because we can store any data. Memo stores all the data in the different files with the extension of .fpt.

7. General

It is similar to the memo data type. It can store and handle large amounts of data in a format of a word processing file. There is a benefit to using general data type. The advantage is we can store a large amount of data by increasing the size of the data.