If you open a table by typing USE <tablename> in the command window, it will open in shared mode by default. You can change that by ticking the "Open exclusive" box in Tools / Options / Data. That will change the default for the current session. To make it the default for future sessions, click Set As Default in the Options dialogue. You can also add the keywords SHARED or EXCLUSIVE to the USE command.

If you open a table from the project manager or the database designer, it will always open exclusively.

Mike

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Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

I cant change in Display, Field validation, Map field, AutoIncrement, F.commnet because table not in database?

If the table is not in a database, then those settings will not be available. A table that is not in a database is a "free table", and free tables don't support any of the properties shown in the right-hand side of the Table Designer (Format, Input Mask, Caption, Validation, Map fields, Comment, etc.)

The reason for this is to maintain backward compatibly with earlier versions FoxPro. If you want to take advantage of those properties, you will have to place the table in a DBC.

That said, some developers say that they rarely use those properties. The only ones that I regularly use are Autoincrement and Field comment. But DBC-bound tables also support long field names, which for me is often the deciding factor.

Mike

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Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

Thank you, Mike

Glad to have been of help, Sasha.

I made a small mistake in my previous post. Autoincrement settings (Next Table and Step) are in fact available for free tables - but only if the table actually contains a field of type Integer (Autoincrement). None of the other properties are available.

Mike

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Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads