Foxpro to MySQL Converter

Migrating FoxPro databases to a MySQL server is generally considered to be a relatively straightforward process compared to migrating between other database management systems (DBMS). This simplicity can be attributed to the fact that FoxPro lacks advanced database objects such as stored procedures, triggers, and views. In FoxPro, databases primarily serve as storage, while the data handling logic is typically contained within the corresponding application(s). Consequently, the migration process mainly involves transferring the data from FoxPro to the MySQL database.

Even so, database migration from FoxPro to MySQL can be a complicated job due to these challenges:

• Logical values are stored in FoxPro as either enumerated type accepting two possible values: True (stored as symbol ‘T’) or False (stored as symbol ‘F’). On the other hand, MySQL provides the BOOLEAN or BOOL type, which is a synonym for TINYINT(1) and accepts values of 1 for True and 0 for False. To ensure semantic equivalence, the mapping from FoxPro to MySQL should assign ‘T’ to 1 and ‘F’ to 0. However, in certain cases, it may be necessary to preserve the original data as it is. In such situations, the most suitable type mapping is ENUM(‘T’, ‘F’) in MySQL. This allows the preservation of the original ‘T’ and ‘F’ values while still providing compatibility with the BOOLEAN data type.
• While DBF files contain information about the encoding in the header, there are cases where this information may be missing or incorrect. Therefore, it is crucial to carefully analyze the results after converting the data using the codepage specified in the DBF file. If certain portions of the text appear incorrect or garbled, a migration expert needs to rerun the conversion using a different codepage to ensure accurate and proper data transfer.

There are numerous techniques of FoxPro to MySQL migration. The most transparent approach is to export FoxPro tables into Comma Separate Values (CSV) files which are then imported into MySQL database. FoxPro tables are converted into CSV format via free tool dbf2csv available at SourceForge. The resulting CSV files must be copied into MySQL data folder because for security reason MySQL allows loading CSV files from that folder only. Every CSV file is imported into MySQL database via “LOAD DATA INFILE” statement as follows:

LOAD DATA INFILE ‘{file name}.csv’ INTO TABLE {database name}.{table name} FIELDS TERMINATED BY ‘,’ ENCLOSED BY ‘”‘ 

LINES TERMINATED BY ‘\r\n’ IGNORE 1 LINES;

None of two migration challenges described above is handled by this FoxPro to MySQL converter, therefore it requires some post-processing in order to solve them manually.

Next option of FoxPro to MySQL converter is a free PHP script called dbf2sql.php. it converts FoxPro tables into MySQL script containing CREATE TABLE and INSERT statements that build schema and fill it with data preventing intermediate steps like CSV file. However, it still doesn’t have flexibility to set up custom mapping of FoxPro logic type and customize the encoding. Therefore dbf2sql.php doesn’t resolve potential problems with FoxPro to MySQL migration specified above.

Intelligent Converters, software vendor focused on database migration and synchronization, offers commercial tool called FoxPro to MySQL converter, which provides extensive customization options for the conversion process. Users have the flexibility to personalize various parameters, such as handling logical values and selecting the appropriate encoding, among others. These customizable features eliminate the need for intermediate steps and manual interventions during the migration process, streamlining the overall experience.

With FoxPro to MySQL converter, you have two options for migrating a database. Firstly, you can directly migrate the database, transferring the data from FoxPro to MySQL without any intermediate steps. Alternatively, you can choose to export the data into a local MySQL script file. This script file contains SQL statements that can generate the necessary tables in MySQL and populate them with the corresponding data. This capability of FoxPro to MySQL converter is particularly useful when the target MySQL server does not accept remote connections, providing a convenient workaround for seamless data migration.

Frances Nelson