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Object-Oriented Programming

  • Article

While Visual FoxPro still supports standard procedural programming, new extensions to the language give you the power and flexibility of object-oriented programming. Object-oriented design and object-oriented programming represent a change in focus from standard procedural programming. Instead of thinking about program flow from the first line of code to the last line of code, you need to think about creating objects: self-contained components of an application that have private functionality as well as functionality that you can expose to the user.

In This Section

  • Basic Programming Concepts
    Provides an overview of programming fundamentals necessary to work in Visual FoxPro, including data storage, data types, containers, operators, functions, commands, and controlling program flow.
  • Classes and Objects: The Building Blocks of Applications
    Explains the differences between classes and objects and highlights the properties, methods, and events of objects.
  • Classes in Visual FoxPro
    Introduces the types of classes in Visual FoxPro and describes their important characteristics.
  • Container Hierarchy Object Referencing
    Describes how objects are referenced in the container hierarchy and explains the importance of identifying objects in relation to the container hierarchy.
  • Setting Properties
    Describes how to set the properties of an object at run time or design time.
  • Calling Methods
    Describes how to call the methods of an object from anywhere in an application once it has been created.
  • Access and Assign Methods
    Discusses the support for Access and Assign methods that you can use to execute code when the value of a property is queried or when you attempt to change the property's value.
  • Procedures and User-Defined Functions
    Discusses procedures and functions, which allow you to keep commonly used code in a single place and call it throughout your application whenever you need it.
  • Understanding the Event Model
    Provides links to information on events, event tracking, and helpful hints on how to place code based on the sequence of events.
  • Creating Programs
    Explains the two ways to create a Visual FoxPro program.
  • Optimizing Applications
    Describes ways to optimize your stable application's performance by making it smaller and faster.
  • Accessing APIs
    Describes how to extend Visual FoxPro if your application has requirements that cannot be met by the built in features by taking advantage of external libraries such as Microsoft ActiveX controls or dynamic-link libraries (DLLs).
  • Preparation for Class Creation
    Contains information on how to plan the design of classes and how to select their functionality.
  • Creating Classes
    Provides three ways to create a new class.
  • Modifying a Class Definition
    Describes the steps required to modify a class in the Project Manager.
  • Subclassing a Class Definition
    Contains directions on how to create a subclass of a user-defined class.