General discussion fp and sql

[Mike Schwartz]

> I know this might sound crazy but is anyone using SQL tables as a front end
> on filePro?  I like the use of .Net screens and report writers like devExpress

> Thank you in advance, Rick Hane, Yore Software Company

     One way to read and write web data to filePro from .NET (or other) web applications is by configuring Apache Tomcat or something similar on your Unix (or Windows) server. 

     By using Tomcat, you are entirely using filePro processing tables to pass data to and from the filePro files and into your web applications.

     The advantage of working entirely within filePro is that all the filePro indexes will stay properly updated and filePro data entry and posting rules will be obeyed.

     The filepro processing called by Tomcat can be a little tedious to write.  It has to be able to handle a lot of bad calls from the web app.  For example, if a .NET developer requests info using an invoice number that does not exist, you have to make sure your code returns a message, something like, "That invoice number does not exist..."  

      You can pull large chunks of data back through Tomcat in order to populate SQL tables; preferably read-only SQL tables.  For example, your web designer could send a tomcat request for all the invoice numbers and a little data from each invoice and then populate a temporary SQL table with it.  You probably wouldn't want to pull back all the fully populated invoices for one customer and then try to load several SQL tables with the resulting data, because that would take several seconds (or minutes) to build in filePro, then transmit back and load into SQL files.   

Mike Schwartz