dbf files in project are not commited.

[tj21z]

📝 Provide a description of the new feature

I'm new to project explorer and Thor!
I've recently downloaded it and my workflow was with svn and .sc files for the binary conversion to text.
Looking at your videos online it seems like a great solution to take the hard work out of git for the day to day parts of committing to the local repo and pushing to remote to give us luddites an easy interface to git when using vfp.

I would like to be able to add dbf files into the git repo and commit them.

My .gitignore is:-

Ignore FoxPro binary files except .dbf

*.scx
*.sct
*.vcx
*.vct
*.mnx
*.mnt
*.frx
*.frt
*.dbc
*.cdx
*.pjx
*.ERR
*.fxp
*.sc

My.gitattributes file is :-

Treat FoxPro binary files as binary

*.scx binary
*.vcx binary
*.mnx binary
*.frx binary
*.dbc binary
*.cdx binary
*.dbf binary

Version control properties top to bottom:-
git
Include both in repository
Foxbin2prg

What is the expected behavior of the proposed feature? What is the scenario this would be used?
Is having dbf files in the project and committing them to git not included or have I missed something?

If I commit a .dbf file I would like it to commit the .dbf file as well.

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If you'd like to see this feature implemented, add a 👍 reaction to this post.

[tj21z]

I would also like to add that .dbf files in the project when they are updated they do not show up as changed when they are modified with new/updated records.

[DougHennig]

Yes, that's supported. Here's a project that has DBFs included in it that are included in the Git repository:

[tj21z]

Thanks Doug but the file is the db2 that is in the git repo not the dbf. If I make a change to the dbf then the bd2 file is not changed. In fact the db2 file just contains details of the structure of the table so I need to keep the binary dbf in the git project but as far as I can tell I have to commit & push that manually in the explorer shell or command line.

Oh great job on this and vfpx, there are a world of goodies in there!

[DougHennig]

Yes, that's the way I work too. Note that unlike other binary files such as forms and classes, changes to DBFs don't automatically update the DB2 file; you have to generate the DB2 manually. One way to do that is to right-click the DBF in Project Explorer and choose Convert Binary to Text. You can then right-click and choose Commit to commit all changes.

[tj21z]

Thanks Doug, just for any others that have this issue they can read -https://github.com/fdbozzo/foxbin2prg/blob/master/docs/FoxBin2Prg_git.md

Put a file named Fox2bin.cfg into where the fox2bin.prg is located and add a line

DBF_Conversion_Support:8      && 0=No support, 1=Generate Header TXT only (Diff), 2=Generate Header TXT and BIN (Merge/Only Structure!), 4=Generate TXT with DATA (Diff), 8=Export and Import DATA (Merge/Structure & Data)

Also your .gitignore will need:

#Files to include in the git repo  
!*.dbf   
!*xfrx.frx    
!*xfrxlib.vct   
!*xfrxlib.vcx   

Also on the project we can convert all binary files to text by right clicking on the project, thats a great tool for ocnverting from svn to git, thanks for adding that,

I downloaded the project explorer code as I would like to add a wait window to say "Please Wait, Loading Project...." as my projects take a fair amount of time to load. Where do I add that? I had a look and couldn't figure it out.

If I can get the change done I'll see if I can work out a PR on here for it.

[tj21z]

Ah, I've found the addins and after a while I've found how to get them active and that I need to put new/modified ones in Addins\MyAddins.

I think this will resolve a problem of old projecthooks that I was using that need a lot of changing from the old scx projecthooks for building sc files as I'm going to use yuor tooling from now on.

While I was testing how to get an addin active I had an error with addcmdwindow.prg

Here is the fix (when you have a path with spaces)

old code:-

* Add a shortcut to get to the 'command window'
*ON KEY LABEL CTRL+F3 DO setFocusCmdWin in SYS(16) && this .prg, path may not always exist so this sets the full path and the name of this prg
LOCAL m.keyShortCut
m.keyShortCut = 'ON KEY LABEL CTRL+F3 DO setFocusCmdWin in ' + SYS(16)
&keyShortCut

Suggestion for new code

* Add a shortcut to get to the 'command window'
*ON KEY LABEL CTRL+F3 DO setFocusCmdWin in SYS(16) && this .prg, path may not always exist so this sets the full path and the name of this prg
LOCAL m.keyShortCut
m.keyShortCut = 'ON KEY LABEL CTRL+F3 DO setFocusCmdWin in ' + '"'+SYS(16)+'"'
execscript(keyShortCut)

[DougHennig]

Thanks for the suggestion. Now that you're working with addins, you can use an addin to display the WAIT WINDOW when loading a project.

[tj21z]

Thanks, that's done and is a gateway into to the addins. It blew my mind for a while before I could work out what was going on thanks to the debugger.

Is mentioned before I have dbf files included in the project, I want foxpin2prg to convert them to db2 after a browse. I've managed to write an addin for "BeforeRunItem" hook for certain tables but i've come up with this command call to the projectexplorerform using _screen.oprojectexplorers.Item(1).AfterNewItem(m.toParameter1) I close the table straight after the browse and ask if the user wants to build a new db2, if not return .t. and normal behaviour which is another browse bit with nowait.

There is no reference to the projectexplorer passed to my addin from the hook. It should be fine as I only ever have one solution open but is there a cleaner way of referencing that method in the project form?

Should the BeforeRunItem hook have the project object passed as a parameter?

The link between dbf and bd2 seemed to be a bit loose. I'm just wanting to make sure the db2 is created stright after a change so the commit keeps that text version handy for conflict/merges.

Thanks in advance.

[tj21z]

Would you like my "BeforeRunItem" addin that offers to immediately convert the dbf to db2 afterm you have browsed it,

`

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[DougHennig]

1. Curious as to why you're calling AfterNewItem after browsing. AfterNewItem is normally called after a new item is added to a project.
2. I'm willing to pass additional parameters to BeforeRunItem if you can show a use case for it.
3. Sure, I can add your adding to the samples.

[tj21z]

I saw that that method would call the foxbin2prg, Maybe I should search deeper and find a better method somewhere else. I’ll get back to you on this one and may have to change the addin. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the code.

[tj21z]

Thanks for the pointer that I was being a bit silly calling the additem method.

I've finally found I can do this:-

m.lcfile=_screen.oProjectExplorers(1).oitem.path	
_screen.oProjectExplorers(1).oSolution.oVersionControl.oConverter.ConvertBinaryToText((m.lcfile),.f.)

No need to pass additional parameters, I just needed to dig deeper!

I'll get my sample cleaned up and work out how to do a pr for you. I'm new to github and not great at git. It's just time and perseverance and reading your guides! Can I just pr a single file rather than cloning the project?

It was a good way for me to cut my teeth and understand PE and what a great tool it is. In fact I can kick myself I'm just getting into the tools offered at vfpx and thor to bring it all together. It's totally transformative to a long term vfp user.

Thanks for the guidance.

[DougHennig]

You can just attach a single file to the issue.