Description
A full description is available at the official filePro website: fptech.com
Conferences
In 2000, there was a conference and Faisal Karim made some pictures.
Unfortunately, these pictures are no longer available.
Mailing list
Subscribing
If you wish to subscribe the filePro mailing list, just send an email to the following address:
majordomo@seaslug.org
Enter "subscribe" in the subject section, and
subscribe filepro-list
end
in the body section
Unsubscribing
If you wish to unsubscribe to the filePro mailing list, just send an e-mail message to the following address:
majordomo@seaslug.org?subject=unsubscribe%20filepro-list
and type "unsubscribe filepro-list" in the message body.
filePro FAQ
An FAQ list exists and can be viewed or downloaded from the hvcomputer website: filepro-faq.txt
Freeware utilities
A small collection of freeware utilities can be downloaded from this site. These programs are intended for the experienced filePro developer.
Note: All programs available run on DOS 3.3 or higher and all Windows platforms (3.0 - XP).
- CSF2fp
This utility transfers a Comma Seperated file (also called an ASCII delimited file) "f1","f2","f3" ... "<CR/LF>" to a predefined filePro (KEY) file, in 1:1. Easier and much faster than designing a new processing table using IMPORT ASCII R=\n F=, O=" C="
Recommended steps for usage:
1. Assume the layout of the input file is new to you. Take a quick look at this file by any editor. You should then recognize the number of fields of each record, the length of each field and whether a field is numeric or just text.
2. Design a new filePro file with ddefine. Enter field descriptions, field lengths and if it is numeric fill in the number of decimals (usually a .0 or ,0).
Note: numeric values will be written right-justified, text fields will be written left justified.
3. Start CSF2fp. You will be prompted to select the input file on current drive and then to select the target EMPTY filePro file.
During transfer you have the option to watch the input fields.
Click here to download CSF2fp.zip V 1.2, 8/13/96, 108.6 KB
- fCopy
When you have filePro running on a network and you wish to copy a filePro file to another (local) location and grab for XCOPY or NCOPY you'll propably have met something like:
-xxxx: File in use- or -access denied-
or something like that. Now you will propably go asking (many) users to lay off the file(s) they are working on so you can copy the key file. But there's another way...
fCopy
fCopy tries to copy all records (deleted records are skipped) of a filePro KEY file of your choice to another location you want. When fCopy gets to the portion of the file which at that moment is being updated, it waits until filePro let go of the record(s).
There are however two important things to keep in mind:
1. fCopy does not check whether users might have been updating records while copying.
2. If records are being deleted or added while copying, there is no guarantee they will be copied (or skipped) as well. This depends whether fCopy has already copied the record or not, because records are copied in order of record number.
Click here to download fCopy.zip - V 1.3, 7/10/96, 40 KB
- fp2dBase
With fp2dBase you can transfer your filePro KEY file to a dBase III compatible file - Fast!
It's possible to transfer the file when users are actually updating records.
This program is semi-menu driven. This means that it's possible to run fp2dBase from the command line without interaction. This way fp2dBase can be implemented in batch processing (.BAT files), or even within filePro processing tables!
How to use fp2dBase
Download the ZIP file by clicking the link below and extract the ZIP file into the directory of your convenience.
In DOS, -or if you're running on Windows, launch a DOS box-, check whether the required filePro setting FPDIR or PFDIR is present and valid (type set<ENTER> at the command line).
Start fp2dBase.exe. You'll notice that fp2dBase will show you all available filePro files within the current environment.
Select the filePro file you wish to transfer by moving the highlight bar to the file name and press <ENTER>.
When you have made the selection, all fields of the file will be shown in a new window.
Then, select fields to transfer, and rename target field names if necessarry, and include or exclude record's system fields @CD/@UD/@BD.
Command line options:
/A select all data fields for export
/I0 exclude @CD/@UD/@BD fields in export
/ICD include @CD in export
/IUD include @UD in export
/IBD include @BD in export
Click here to download version 1.14f of fp2dBase.zip (jan 17, 1997, 36kB)
- fp2db2
Transfer filePro data file to a dBase III compatible file.
How to use fp2db2
You have to pass 3 command line parameters to fp2db2:
<dBase_file> <location_of_data_segment> and <target_dBase_file>
Preparations:
Create a (new) dBase III file (<dBase_file>) with the same number of fields as your filePro data segment. The field lengths in the target dBase file should also equal the filePro field lengths.
Save this file to a location of you convenience.
The first parameter to fp2db2 is the name of this dBase 'header' or preferrably named as definition file.
The second parameter is the exact location of the data file, i.e. c:\filepro\users\data.
The third parameter is the filename of the target dBase database.
Click here to download fp2db2.zip - V 1.0, 6/17/96, 30 KB.
- fpCheck
This utility was written to make filePro file properties visible in just a single snap, rather than jumping around all filePro menu items. This program shows properties and file status which are unavailable for the programmer when using the filePro menus.
When you run the program from the DOS command line with a specified filePro file passed as parameter, the program:
- Shows the physical and logical record size of the file (use option /V)
- Shows the number of all index files built on this file, including the name and number of the field the index is using. On demand index files it shows the index build date and the number of records in this demand index.
- Displays an error if the key file doe not match the map file. If such a mismatch comes to life (and I've seen it happen) the data can be screwed up like you've never seen before ;-)
- Displays a warning if an automatic index file contains data but the key file doesn't. These situations may occur when you are restoring a backup and all files except the key file is restored, or the key file suddenly becomes empty (0 bytes).
- Displays a warning if an automatic index file should be rebuilt. Each automatic index file contains a flag indicating the index should be rebuilt.
- Displays a warning if an automatic index file is unstable and should be rebuilt to be secure.
- Displays a warning if the field length defined in the index does not match with the field length in the key file. If there is such a mismatch (may be on purpose) your program may not find the correct record(s) when using this index.
- Calculates the actual number of deleted records in the key file by scanning the free chain. I personally like this feature and have used this many times. If you wish to view the record numbers of these deleted records, use the command line option /D.
- Displays a warning if a filePro file contains a screen without any input fields. If you use such a screen in Add Records mode, filePro will add a record, tries to bring you in update mode, which it can't, assumed it as updated and adds a new record, and so on. This results in a flickering screen with the only option to escape is to press Ctrl-Break (if you're lucky), or even Ctrl-Alt-Del to reboot.
- If the processing tables are saved in ASCII (DOS set ABE=ASCII), it shows all lookup statements and all labels in all processing tables (.prc)
Click here to download fpCheck.zip (feb 8, 1996, 25kB)
- lockfile
Clean up all filePro lockfile files, like dprodir does.
It also cleans up Qualified lockfiles (lockf<qualifier>).
Click here to download LockFile.zip - V 3.11b, 6/17/96, 22 KB.
Click here to download the updated file lockfile32.zip - V3.2 30/7/2000 14kB Note: this 3.2 version works with fp versions 4.1 - 5.0