Shedding Some Light

I am working on a project to enhance an existing application, and in the process I am updating it from VFP 5 to VFP 9 (more stable, less filling). I thought I was going to take advantage of the multiple detail band features of the new Report Designer, but decided on another approach. The update from VFP 5 to VFP 9 has been smooth with the help of three lines of code:

SET ENGINEBEHAVIOR 70
SET REPORTBEHAVIOR 80
_screen.Themes = .F.

That is until yesterday…

The users acceptance testing revealed two bugs that are related. The application has some calculations on a report, and the calculations were evaluating incorrectly. The users pointed me toward a number not being included in the final results, but the formula definitely included the table column in question. It turns out that data was not being correctly pulled from the SQL Server database.

My debugging session showed no records in a certain scenario. I initially thought it had to do with the data in the base tables in SQL Server not having the conditions. and told the users they needed to set up data that met the criteria. They did and it still did not pull any data. Things that make you go hmmmmm.

What I found out in closer inspection is the original developer made a local view of two remote views. The code USEs the one local view with NODATA and later does a REQUERY(). Years ago I observed strange behavior with views based on other views and have stayed away from them. This situation is even “stranger” since it is a local view based on two remote views. Looking a the code, I never gave it a thought this was the case. I assumed (incorrectly of course) that this was a view pulling data directly from SQL Server.

In VFP 9, when you open a view NODATA, and the view is based on other views that are not yet USEd, the underlying views are also opened with NODATA.

In VFP 8 and earlier (I tested every version back to VFP 5), when you open a view NODATA and the other views are not yet USEd, only that view is opened with NODATA and the underlying views are opened with data.

Back to VFP 9, issuing the REQUERY() on the view requeried no records because the other views were already empty. Ugh. It was not the SQL Server data not meeting the criteria after all, it was the local cursors being empty.

The fix is easy: open the underlying views first, then open up the original view and REQUERY(). Fortunately the IT manager who is my customer understands how things like this can happen. He has been waiting to hear the “VFP 9 update excuse” during this testing period. He is a .NET developer so we had some fun jabbing each other’s favorite developer tool.

I also tested this same issue with a local view of two other local views. Same behavior. It is not remote view specific. Unfortunately I cannot find any documentation in the Help file with respect to this behavior change, so I thought I would post it here and possibly save someone else some aggravation down the road. I never ran into this because I do not do view-on-view coding, but I know others do and this is something you should be aware of when you use this technique.

This evening I received some great news from Microsoft that I have been named a MVP for the 2007-2008 season (renewed on October 1st each year). This is the seventh consecutive time I have been honored with this award.

The MVP award is the way Microsoft recognizes individuals for their contribution in supporting Visual FoxPro developers (and other Microsoft technologies) by answering questions on forums, presenting sessions at conferences, and writing articles, blogs, books, and several other activities. More information about the MVP program can be found at the MVP site.

This is absolutely an honor. It is my intention to continue helping other VFP developers on FoxForum.com, the MSDN forum, Foxite.com, other forums, at conferences, through this blog, and helping organize Southwest Fox.

Just in case you have not subscribed to our new RSS feed (recently created for us by Rick Borup), we have a change in the schedule for Saturday. The Arizona Golf Resort and Conference Center notified us of a change in the venue that really helps us and triggered a slew of changes I want to make sure you hear about. Previously we had the pre-conference sessions and keynote in another building, but now all sessions will be in Fairway 1-4. Another conflicting event in the same building Saturday night has been moved too.

What this means is:

1. The vendor sessions on Saturday will be full 75 minute sessions.
2. Lunch has been extended to a full hour (previously we had to crunch it to 45 minutes).
3. A new version of Dave Aring’s Kokopelli scheduling app has been updated this morning (so if you previously downloaded it please get a fresh copy). There are no changes to the regular sessions, but we did include the new Visual MaxFrame and Stonefield Query user group meetings on the printed schedule.
4. You will have more opportunities to visit the vendors (more to be announced soon on this topic soon).

Behind the scenes things are nuts. Over the last three days I probably have 250 emails on various aspects of Southwest Fox. We are close to 140 registered attendees and more than 160 people including speakers and vendors coming to the conference.

Only three weeks to go until we meet in Mesa.

So are you looking at getting a book from Hentzenwerke Publishing (our newest Bronze sponsor), but want to chat in person with the publisher or one of the many authors in person before picking it up, or ordering it? No problem, just be in Mesa between October 18th and 21st and stop by the registration desk.

Whil (who is presenting a couple of sessions at the conference) is selling his entire line of Visual FoxPro books between sessions at Southwest Fox. Just in case you did not know, Hentzenwerke is the biggest publisher of VFP books on the planet.

As one of the many Hentzenwerke authors and tech editors I know the books sell best at conferences so this is very exciting news. The conference just keeps getting better.

Only a month to go before we all gather in Mesa.

Each night the partitions on my computer get backed up to an USB drive (drive O:\). When I connect the USB drive sometimes it remembers it is O: and sometimes it thinks it is F:. Kind of a pain in the neck, but I just hop into XP’s Computer Manager and select the Disk Management, pick the disk and right-click to bring up a shortcut menu. I pick the Change Drive Letter and Path… option. I have done this hundreds of times.

Until last night when I accidentally picked Mark Partition as Active. This tells the hardware to make this drive the bootable drive. It did not even ask me if I was sure I wanted to hose up my hardware, it just switched it as if this is done everyday by users. What the heck?!?

So I poke around on the Web and every message I read usually ends with “dude, you are sooooo hosed.” Ugh.

I called my hardware guy and tell him what I did. He went and did a little research and came back with the “Dude, you are so hosed…”

I HATE hardware.

In a desperate last resort kind of thinking I recall I have a four support incidents with Microsoft from my MSDN Universal Everything Suite System Subscription. So I take a shot. After all, I am already hosed so what could be worse? Thanks for asking. {g}

I want to let you know I had low expectations going in, but I am very happy to report Microsoft Tech Support fixed me up. Actually they inspected my machine and found out I was not hosed, but I did not know this until the very end. I literally could throw away the USB drive and the OS would have booted fine. But Surbhi downloaded a disk sector hex editor and made it so the USB drive was not the active partition. I was literal sweating as she was probing and hacking. Even though she was very reassuring all would be well I was naturally concerned. If I had rebooted with the USB drive it would have come up looking like I had no OS loaded, but she “hacked” sector 1 and made it so it was not active. Sweet.

So my first experience in years with Microsoft Tech Support was a pleasant and rewarding one. I also asked her at the end what happens when XP is no longer on the support list. She said it would be a long, long time before this happens. I kind of laughed when she said Vista was a baby operating system. I know she was referring to the “infancy” definition and not that it was inferior or smaller in some way. Getting premium tech support is a natural concern for businesses moving forward and not adopting the latest OS from any company.

So now you know how I wasted my morning and part of my afternoon. I HATE hardware. Almost drives a man to drink more than water and lemonade. {g}

Honestly, I never thought this was something I was going to announce when we decided to work on Southwest Fox 2007, but we are setting new registration records almost daily! We still have more than a month to go and we have close to 150 people set to come to Mesa in October. Unbelievable.

So THANKS!

Only 37 days to get registered! See everyone in Mesa.

Yep, we are getting close to the conference, but more companies are getting on board the already crowded Southwest Fox Conference sponsor bus. I want to introduce you to xSQL Software. These guys have some cool SQL Server tools and have become our newest Bronze sponsor.

One tool in particular is a tool I have been looking for for more time than I care to admit. I think their xSQL Builder tool is as close to the Stonefield Database Toolkit Update feature for SQL Server as any product I have looked at. I am hoping to cover this tool during my SQL Server Developer Toolkit session.

xSQL Software is providing several doorprizes to be given away during the conference. Very cool stuff.

I am glad to see there are some live bloggers at FoxForward so I can hear about sessions and things going on at the conference. I am occasionally getting an instant messages from people at the conference too, which makes me want to be there even more than I did before the conference started.

Sounds like things are going well and some fun is being had by all.

I even had something added to my DAFUG to-do list {g}. Tod, interested in coming to Detroit in the near future?

Looking for the inside story? Check here:
Dave Crozier (all the way from England)
Kevin Cully (how the heck does the organizer guy have time??)
Steve Bodnar (speaking at the conference)
Tod McKenna (speaking at the conference)

There are a couple of other bloggers hanging out and speaking too so I am looking forward to reading their observations and thoughts too.