asked on

FoxPro Alias Table Name

Hello Experts!

How can I shorten the name of a table?
For Example:

SELECT *;
FROM Long_Table_Name LTN;

In SQL you can just put a space and then LTN for the short name, how do you do this in FoxPro?

Thanks,
Mark

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Pavel Celba

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smithmrk

ASKER

Thanks!

Olaf Doschke

Besides USE ALIAS you can also use alias namesin SQL, as you initially wrote, with or without AS keyword:

SELECT LTN.fieldx, ATN.fieldy;
FROM Long_Table_Name LTN ;
LEFT JOIN Another_Table_Name AS ATN;
ON LTN.id = ATN.LTNid

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Besides M you should also aviod a-j as those are reserved for workarea 1 to 10 for historical reasons (backward compatibility with 2.x versions, if not even older).

Bye, Olaf.

smithmrk

ASKER

Thanks for the additional information Olaf!

Mark

Olaf Doschke

You're welcome.

Another hint: If you're having problem with a query length, especially the WHERE clause: take a look at SYS(3055)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/43cab295(v=vs.80).aspx

Bye, Olaf.

Pavel Celba

Just to clarify: Local (short) aliases a - j can be used in SQL commands without restrictions. The local alias has precedence to any other language element and historical reasons cannot apply here. Alias m can also be used in SQL commands but then you cannot distinguish between table (aliased as m) column and memory variable of the same name.

FoxPro has no reserved keywords and you may use language elements as variable and column names almost freely (with some restrictions and surprises, of course)... Variables a - j do not cause any problems.

SYS(3055) can be useful but I did not use it yet - my SQL commands are too short probably. But to overview the list of available FoxPro functions is geed practice. :-)

smithmrk

ASKER

WOW, Thanks for all the Information!
I really appreciate the knowledge you folks have as I try to be a better programmer!

Thanks again for all your help in the past, now, and defiently in the future!

Mark