FoxPro
FoxPro is a text-based procedurally oriented programming language and DBMS, and it is also an object-oriented software programming language, originally published by Fox Software and later by Microsoft, for MS-DOS, Windows, Macintosh, and UNIX. The final published release of FoxPro was 2.6. Development continued under the Visual FoxPro label, which in turn was discontinued in 2007.
Although FoxPro is a Database Management System (DBMS) and although it does support relationships between tables, it is not considered a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS), lacking transactional processing.
Sold and supported by Microsoft, there is an active worldwide community of FoxPro users and programmers. FoxPro 2.6 for UNIX (FPU26) has even been successfully installed on Linux and FreeBSD using the Intel Binary Compatibility Standard (ibcs2) support library.
Version information
Operating system compatibility
| Version | FP 2.0 | FP 2.5 | FP 2.6 | FP 9.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MS-DOS | No | Yes | Yes | |
| Windows 3.1 to XP | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Macintosh | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| SCO UNIX | No | No | Yes | |
| Linux & FreeBSD | No | No | Yes[1] | |
| Windows 2000 | No | No | Yes |
Technical aspects
FoxPro 2 included the "Rushmore" optimizing engine, which used indices to accelerate data retrieval and updating. Rushmore technology examined every data-related statement, and looked for filter expressions. If one was used, it looked for an index matching the same expression.
In addition, FoxPro2 was originally built on WatCOM C++, which had its own memory extender - at that time state-of-the-art. FoxPro2 could access expanded and extended memory, using almost all available RAM (DOS). It used some interrupts in absence of the extended memory driver: if no HIMEM.SYS was loaded, FoxPro enabled that mechanism.
Version Timeline
| Version | VERSION() returns | EXE Size | EXE Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| FPW 2.6a | FoxPro 2.6a for Windows | 2,444 kb | 28 September 1994 |
| FPM 2.6a | FoxPro 2.6a for Macintosh | ? kb | August 1994 |
| FPD 2.6a | FoxPro 2.6a for DOS | 1,788 kb | August 1994 |
| FPW 2.6 | FoxPro 2.6 for Windows | 2.38 Mb | 9 March 1994. |
| FPM 2.6 | FoxPro 2.6 for Macintosh | ? kb | 1993 |
| FPD 2.6 | FoxPro 2.6 for DOS | ? kb | March 1994 |
| FPU 2.6 | FoxPro 2.6 for Unix | 2.3 Mb | 1993 |
| FPW 2.5 | FoxPro 2.5 for Windows | 1.63 Mb | January 1993 |
| FPD 2.5 | FoxPro 2.5 for DOS | 509,013 bytes | February 1993 |
| FPD 2.0 | FoxPro 2.0 for DOS | 465.86 kb | 1991 |
| FPD 1.0 | FoxPro 1.0 for DOS | ? | 1989 |
References
- ↑ using the ibcs files from the Linux ABI on SourceForge.net
External links
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