Does copying FoxPro .DBF files affect a running FoxPro application?

Question

I want to copy many big FoxPro dbf files (totally >80G) from production environment to a test machine. Those dbf files are business data of a old FoxPro application. This application is running and I cannot stop it.

Can I copy those files? Will it affect the application?

Answer 1

It depends how valid you need the test machine data to be - do you need it exact to test for a problem, or do you just need a copy to play with?

If you need an exact copy then you need to stop the FoxPro application. There is no way round this, because the only way you can ensure that all tables have been written to and closed is by stopping the application.

If you just need a copy to mess around with then I often do this at the prompt using XCOPY with the /Z parameter.

Make sure that the FoxPro application is not being actively used if possible, then if your live data is in c:\mylivedata and you want to copy to c:\mytestdata, at cmd prompt:

xcopy /z /s c:\mylivedata*.* c:\mytestdata