FiveTech Support Forums

I need to connect to ODBC via the Internet, to send & receive data from DBFs. The Internet connection will be sending SQL commands thus the need for the ODBC connection. The Internet connection will be via a third-party product so I don't have any options there.

Questions:

1) Can this be done?

2) Alternately, perhaps we could use a SQL database for the third-party product to connect to, then move the data back and forth to the DBFs?

3) Does anyone have any sample code, and/or other ideas of how to do this?

I have searched the forum and couldn't find any references to this type of connection.

James

Rick,

I have not done this sort of thing before, and I don't think I was clear.

We have a third-party vendor that needs to read and write to our DBFs via the Internet. They are used to doing this when accessing SQL databases but we need them to access our DBFs in an existing application.

So, can we do this via ADO?

James

Yes, you can use Microsoft Visual FoxPro Driver. Install it on the web server (if you are allowed to do it) and use the following connection string:

Driver={Microsoft Visual FoxPro Driver};SourceType=DBF;SourceDb=<dbfpath>

EMG

ADO and Indexes

Does anyone know, if you update DBFs via ADO, are the indexes updated too? If so, how does this work--is there a configuration file that tells the ADO which indexes go with the DBF. Which index types are supported, ntx, cdx, ?

I have been searching the internet but can't find these answers.

James

As far as I know, no, you can't use/update DBF indexes using ADO.

EMG

Thanks, Enrico. That was my fear. Although you can write data, if you can't update indexes, it seems that using ADO has little value except for reading data.

James

I think it depends on the driver. I know the jet engine can update dbf index files. If you have Advanced Database Server you can also provide remote access via ODBC client or OLE DB client for ADO.

James Bott wrote:Thanks, Enrico. That was my fear. Although you can write data, if you can't update indexes, it seems that using ADO has little value except for reading data.

James

Gale FORd wrote:I think it depends on the driver. I know the jet engine can update dbf index files. If you have Advanced Database Server you can also provide remote access via ODBC client or OLE DB client for ADO.

The jet driver and some others allow you to connect to different Foxpro and dBase version. Would have to match up the locking schemes.

Gale,

Are you suggesting that the Jet ODBC driver could be used by SQL engines other than Access?

James

Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=c:\folder;
Extended Properties=dBASE IV;User ID=Admin;

Driver={Microsoft dBase Driver (*.dbf)};datasource=dBase Files;

Tanks, Gale, all good information.

We may not have to deal with indexes. We may just put the incoming data into batch files and process them in the FWH app. Still being able to use indexes would be great.

James