FoxCore

FoxCore.Runtime takes long work off the main Visual FoxPro thread. Each task starts its own VFP process, the script is injected into it, the result is collected and it is closed: VFP is still single-threaded, what you have is several VFPs. The application does not go dead in the meantime, and N tasks run at once.

Worth saying early, because it saves disappointment: FoxCore does not make code faster. Something that takes 40 seconds still takes 40 seconds. What changes is that it does not block, that you can show progress and cancel, and that several fit at the same time. And starting a worker costs between a tenth of a second and three seconds, so a 200 ms task is not a candidate: the start-up costs more than the work.

In this section

• Installation: Requirements, the installer and registration in both registry views.
• Quick Start: Your first task in another process, in under five minutes.
• Advanced Patterns: The batch, the large batch, progress with cancellation, handlers and the blackboard.
• API Reference: The six COM types, member by member, and what does not exist.
• Examples: Three complete programs, exactly as they run.
• Licensing: One license per company, what changed in 3.4.0 and how it is activated.

What it does

• Runs the same VFP code, without rewriting it, in another process: with the result coming back, progress, cancellation, a deadline and a deterministic shutdown
• MaxWorkers from 1 to 64 simultaneous processes; by default, min(cores, 8)
• Progress and messages from inside the task with runtime.Progress(), read back with GetProgress() and GetProgressMessage() with no pumping needed
• Cooperative cancellation: the task asks runtime.IsCancelled() on each turn of its loop
• A deadline per task; when it runs out the task ends TimedOut and the worker dies
• Total isolation: the worker does not see your variables, your work areas, your SETs or your cursors. It is born clean, and opens whatever it needs itself
• The worker can call back into the host with Call(), and both sides share a blackboard through GetValue() and SetValue()
• Frozen COM contract: six types, and members only ever grow at the end

Requirements