I did something similar to what you are doing, shelling out to DuckDB from Visual FoxPro in the early to mid 2000s, except I was shelling out from FoxPro for DOS and FoxPro for Unix into the MySQL command-line client. I never had any real issues, but it would make the screen jumble up, and I'd have to clear it and refresh after every shell-out. I haven't used VFPA in a while, but if that lets you connect via ODBC, I'd keep experimenting with that too. It seems pretty mature now. Just watch out for some of your existing tooling breaking because it expects 32-bit stuff. -Jeff
On Fri, Aug 28, 2026 at 8:54 AM <[email protected]> wrote: > Ed, I understand your point and I did use AI to explore some of the > questions I had about DuckDb, but there are things that made me post my > post yesterday: > > 1) I really want to take advantage of some of the features I see in DuckDB > where I can expand the VFP work I'm already doing in the data conversion > market. I have 30 years' worth of library code I've built and frameworks > I've constructed specifically for the niche market I serve and I don't want > to leave that behind. Right or wrong that's where I am and I'll probably be > writing in Foxpro until they pry the keyboard from my cold, dead hands. > However, after I posted my message yesterday, I continued doing some > testing with the CLI version of DuckDB and found I could accomplish some of > my wishes without a 32-bit ODBC driver. These are rough tests, but they > will give you an idea of what I'm doing: > > * Extract Selected Fields from CSV file without importing and write > results to another CSV file (Time to process over 1000 records: 1 second) > > ***************************************************************************************************************** > TEXT TO lcCmdString NOSHOW > c:\duckdb\cli\duckdb.exe -c "COPY (SELECT emplid, prefix, fname, mname, > lname, suffix, rstate FROM 'c:/duckdb/empls.csv') TO 'c:/duckdb/test.csv' > (HEADER);" > ENDTEXT > > RUN &lcCmdString > > * Import JSON file, extract one field and save results to CSV File (Time > was under 1 second, but it was a very small JSON file) > > **************************************************************************************************** > TEXT TO lcCmdString NOSHOW > c:\duckdb\cli\duckdb.exe -c "COPY (SELECT address1 FROM > 'c:/duckdb/fcc.json') TO 'c:/duckdb/jsontocsv.csv' (HEADER);" > ENDTEXT > > RUN &lcCmdString > > * Import CSV File and Save as SQLite Database then Query the SQLite > Database from VFP > * This snippet also hides the CMD window (Source file contained 485K > records. Time to process: 2.35 seconds) > * Note: The lcCmdString includes a series of SQL statements passed as a > single string delimited by semi-colon > > ****************************************************************************************** > LOCAL loShell, lcCmdString, lnResult > CLEAR > a = SECONDS() > loShell = CREATEOBJECT("WScript.Shell") > > TEXT TO lcCmdString NOSHOW > c:\duckdb\cli\duckdb.exe -c "INSTALL sqlite;LOAD sqlite;ATTACH > 'C:/Duckdb/wages.sqlite' AS sqlite_db (TYPE sqlite);CREATE TABLE > sqlite_db.wages AS (SELECT * FROM > read_csv_auto('C:/duckdb/wages.csv'));DETACH sqlite_db;" > ENDTEXT > > * 0 = hide window > * .T. = wait until the command finishes > lnResult = loShell.Run(lcCmdString, 0, .T.) > > IF lnResult <> 0 > MESSAGEBOX("DuckDB returned error code " + TRANSFORM(lnResult)) > > ELSE > > b = SECONDS() > ? "time: " + ALLTRIM(TRANSFORM(b-a)) + " seconds" > ENDIF > > lcDSNLess = "DRIVER={SQLite3 ODBC Driver};Database=C:\DuckDb\wages.sqlite;" > lnConnection = SQLSTRINGCONNECT(lcDSNLess) > > IF lnConnection > 1 > > TEXT TO lcSQLCmd NOSHOW > SELECT DISTINCT CAST([pay_type_description] as varchar(40)) as > ptype from wages > ENDTEXT > > SQLEXEC(lnConnection, lcSQLCmd, "PayTypes") > > ENDIF > > 2) I would rather post to this group and ask for help in most cases, > because there is no AI in the world that can match the wide range of > knowledge contained in the heads of the members here nor can they program > an AI to include the attitudes, sense of humor and snarky comebacks that > I've come to know and love. > > I've accomplished my first goal with DuckDb which was to determine if > there was even a way to use it with VFP. The answer is yes. Once again, the > Fox gives me the freedom to do amazing things including incorporate > completely new technologies and different tools in ways that help me > maximize what I can do for my clients. Has anyone else worked with DuckDb > in any way? The CLI version is 40Mb and runs incredibly fast from what I > can see. > > PS: I've also been playing around with Lazarus some of late and using > Duck.ai to try help me learn it. I've had to put it down for a while, but I > find the Lazarus IDE very familiar and easy to use. > > Thanks! > > Paul H. Tarver > Tarver Program Consultants, Inc. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Edward Leafe <[email protected]> > Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2026 8:46 PM > To: ProFox Email List <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: DuckDb & Foxpro > > On Aug 27, 2026, at 10:12, [email protected] wrote: > > > > I have at least learned that currently they only have a 64bit ODBC > > driver which means I'd probably have to use VFA64 to use this method > > of connecting to the data, but DuckDB supports multiple API's so I may > > have to use those alternatives instead. As I said, I'm just starting > > to getting into this, so any ideas would be appreciated. > > Is there a reason, other than it’s what you know best, that you have to > work with VFP for this? I always think that this is a perfect time to try > something new. Of course you know I’d recommend Python, especially since it > has great support, but really the choice can be anything. > > I wasn’t going to send a reply like this, until I saw Kurt’s post just > now. You have an amazing new tool available to help you learn! For example, > recently I wanted to try learning Rust. I have a script that I wrote years > ago that I posted about recently (https://leafe.com/archives/msg/518759) > that analyzes the accumulated suspected spam, and presents it in a report > that is emailed to me. That original script was written in Python, but > about 5-6 years ago I re-wrote it in Go, because it was the latest hotness, > and I wanted to get a feel for it. This week I re-wrote it again in Rust, > but instead of trying, failing, trying to search for the error, I worked > with Claude Code to do it. Now I could have told Claude to just write it by > itself, but instead I described the project and told it that I wanted it to > create a tutorial environment for learning the language. I would ask > questions like ‘is there a preferred email parsing tool?’, and Claude would > search for the current status of email processing, and put together a basic > script for parsing an mbox into separate emails. I looked at that script > and didn’t understand most of it, so I would ask Claude to explain each > part that wasn’t clear. Here’s a sample of the Rust code: > > let data = fs::read(&spam_file) > .with_context(|| format!("failed to read {}", > spam_file.display()))?; > > log::line(&format!( > "spammail: {} bytes -> {}", > data.len(), > spam_file.display() > ))?; > > let raw_messages = mbox::split(&data); > let parser = MessageParser::default(); > > There’s a lot there that was gibberish to me at first, but I would ask > Claude to explain each bit, and it started to make sense. I’m certainly not > a Rust expert by any means, but I’m at the point where I can read code like > that and understand what it’s doing. With a built-in teacher like Claude, > why not try something new? > > > -- Ed Leafe > > > _______________________________________________ > Post Messages to: [email protected] > Subscription Maintenance: > https://lists.leafe.com/postorius/lists/profoxtech.leafe.com/ > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] Full version > of this list, including off-topic messages: > https://lists.leafe.com/postorius/lists/profox.leafe.com/ > Searchable Archive: https://leafe.com/archives This message: > https://leafe.com/archives/byMID/[email protected] > ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of > the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement > is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the > obvious > > > _______________________________________________ > Post Messages to: [email protected] > Subscription Maintenance: > https://lists.leafe.com/postorius/lists/profox.leafe.com/ > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > OT-free version of this list: > https://lists.leafe.com/postorius/lists/profoxtech.leafe.com/ > Searchable Archive: https://leafe.com/archives > This message: > https://leafe.com/archives/byMID/[email protected] > ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of > the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement > is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the > obvious > -- Jeff Roberts | [email protected] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: https://lists.leafe.com/postorius/lists/profox.leafe.com/ To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] OT-free version of this list: https://lists.leafe.com/postorius/lists/profoxtech.leafe.com/ Searchable Archive: https://leafe.com/archives This message: https://leafe.com/archives/byMID/CAMandq8k6Wm36VAZ=HY+6aw4BJkGY=4nahd4v3qfhbm2ghw...@mail.gmail.com ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious
