Q173879: HOWTO: Importing an Access Table into FoxPro for the Mac

Article: Q173879
Product(s): Microsoft FoxPro
Version(s): MACINTOSH:2.6a,3.0b
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): kbHWMAC kbvfp
Last Modified: 26-AUG-1999

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Visual FoxPro for Macintosh, version 3.0b 
- Microsoft FoxPro for Macintosh, version 2.6a 
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SUMMARY
=======

Often, you have information in an Access table that needs to be imported into a
FoxPro 2.x for the Macintosh or Visual FoxPro 3.0b for the Macintosh table.
However, neither version of FoxPro offers a command that directly imports an
Access table into a .dbf file nor is there a Macintosh-based ODBC driver
available to read the Access data. This article provides several methods of
accomplishing this task.

MORE INFORMATION
================

Since neither Visual FoxPro 3.0b for the Macintosh or FoxPro 2.x for the
Macintosh has a method of importing Access tables, you must use the
functionality of Access to create the .dbf table. Since Access is a Windows
product, this article assumes the user has access to a Windows 95 or Windows NT
machine.

The first method assumes that you have Visual FoxPro 3.x or 5.x for Windows.
Since both versions of Visual FoxPro for Windows have ODBC drivers that
interface with Access tables, one can create a remote view within Visual FoxPro
to read the Access data and then save it to a .dbf file. The second method uses
Access to save the file in a .dbf format. This method does not require one to
install Visual FoxPro 3.x or 5.x for Windows.

First Method
------------

1. Create a new database called Ztest in Visual FoxPro 3.x or 5.x.

2. In the database, right-click and select New Remote View.

3. Select New View and then click Available data sources.

4. Select the proper Access driver from the list. In this case, Access 7.0
  database and click OK.

5. If Microsoft Office 97 is installed, open the employee table contained in the
  Northwind.mdb (an Access database container) located in the program
  Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Samples folder. The exact path on a machine
  depends on the location of Microsoft Office.

6. After adding the Employees table, click Close.

7. Add the necessary fields using the Fields tab and execute the view.

8. Once the view returns the data, press the CTRL and F2 keys simultaneously to
  invoke the Command window and type the following:

        COPY TO HOME()+"Temp.dbf"

9. In the Command window type the following (without the quotation marks):

        "USE ?"

  Navigate to the Visual FoxPro home directory and locate Temp.dbf and select
  it.

10. Type "BROWSE" (without quotation marks) in the Command window to see the
  Visual FoxPro table. Now copy the file to a disk or place it in a device
  that both a Windows and a Macintosh machine can access. Finally, copy the
  file to the appropriate folder on the Macintosh.

Second Method
-------------

1. Start Microsoft Access 97.

2. Open the Access table that needs to be converted to a FoxPro table.

3. From the File menu, select Save As/Export.

4. Select "To an external database" and click OK.

5. In the Save as Type list box, select either Microsoft FoxPro 2.6 (*.DBF) or
  Microsoft FoxPro 3.0 (*.DBF) and save the file.

6. Place the new .dbf file on a disk or a device that is readable by a Macintosh
  machine. Copy the file to the desired Macintosh folder and open the file with
  FoxPro.

REFERENCES
==========

Access Online Help

Additional query words: Access

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Keywords          : kbHWMAC kbvfp 
Technology        : kbHWMAC kbOSMAC kbVFPsearch kbAudDeveloper kbFoxproSearch kbFoxPro260aMac kbVFP300bMac
Version           : MACINTOSH:2.6a,3.0b
Issue type        : kbhowto

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