Tuesday, July 12, 2011

How to Convert a Clipper 5.2e application to Harbour

This article is written in in response to a comment left on Clipper... Clipper.. Clipper by Terry Carrol on 3rd July 2011 who asked

I’d like to know if there is an easy migration from Clipper to something else that I could make my Clipper program work on a 64-bit machine..."

As you are probably aware, Clipper apps being 16-bits cannot run on 64-bits Windows 7. For it to do so, it must be converted to 32-bits by using the Harbour or  xHarbour. I had previously show how to do so in Migrating from CA-Clipper 5.2e to xHarbour (Part I), a 3-part series. So this article focuses on using Harbour 2.1

Step 1 - Convert your Clipper link (*.lnk) file to  Harbour Project File (*.hbp)
Step 2 - Use Hbmk2 to compile the .hbp file

Step 1

1.1 Let us start by looking a Blinker link file of one of my actual Clipper project

BLINKER INCREMENTAL OFF
BLINKER EXECUTABLE COMPRESS
BLINKER EXECUTABLE CLIPPER F99
BLINKER PROCEDURE DEPTH 70
BLINKER OVERLAY OPSIZE 30
STACK 7168

FILE FC_MAIN
OUTPUT FASCALL

BEGINAREA
    FILE WRPT_GLL
    FILE WRPT_ARL
    FILE WRPT_ARD
    FILE WRPT_ARS
    FILE WRPT_APL
    FILE WRPT_APD
    FILE WRPT_APS
    FILE \KSLIB\CLIPLIB\UTILITY

    FILE \CLIPLIB\COMIX\CLIPMORE\52\CM52.OBJ
    ALLOCATE \CLIPLIB\COMIX\CLIPMORE\52\CM52
    FILE \CLIPLIB\COMIX\COMIX\52\CMX52.OBJ
    ALLOCATE \CLIPLIB\COMIX\COMIX\52\CMX52
ENDAREA

LIBRARY CLIPPER
LIBRARY EXTEND
LIBRARY DBFCDX
NOBELL


1.2 Convert the fascall.lnk to fascall.hbp

-ofascall4w7.exe
-w0
-es2
-rebuild

fc_main
WRPT_GLL
WRPT_ARL
WRPT_ARD
WRPT_ARS
WRPT_APL
WRPT_APD
WRPT_APS
UTILITY

Step 2


hbmk2 FASCALL.HBP

Result

You are bound to have a number of unresolved Externals, ie functions not supported by Harbour.
Once you have found alternative functions, FASCALL4W7.EXE, a true 32-bit executable will run on Windows 7 64-bits.

That's it :-)

1 comment:

  1. Who can help me to convert prg files from 5.20 to windows platform .if you can, I can send you prg-files...email me at " kontabilisti@t-home.mk "

    ReplyDelete

Welcome to Clipper... Clipper... Clipper


In 1997, then using Delphi 3, I had already created 32-bits Windows applications for HRIS, ERP and CRM. In 2007, using Ruby on Rails, an AJAX powered CRM site running on Apache & MySQL was created and I am now using Visual Studio .Net 2008 to create web-based projects and Delphi 7 for Win32 applications using SQL2005 & DBFCDX.

So, why then am I reviving the Original Clipper... Clipper... Clipper via a Blog as CA-Clipper is a programming language for the DOS world ? Believe it or not, there are still some clients using my mission-critical CA-Clipper applications for DOS installed in the late 80's and up to the mid 90's. This is testimony to CA-Clipper's robustness as a language :-)

With the widespread introduction of Windows 7 64-bits as the standard O/S for new Windows based PCs & Notebooks, CA-Clipper EXE simply will not work and it has become imperative for Clipper programmers to migrate immediately to Harbour to build 32/64 bits EXEs

Since 28th January 2009, this blog has been read by 134,389 (10/3/11 - 39,277) unique visitors (of which 45,151 (10/3/11 - 13,929) are returning visitors) from 103 countries and 1,574 cities & towns in Europe (37; 764 cities), North America (3; 373 cities) , Central America & Caribeans (6; 13 cities), South America(10; 226 cities), Africa & Middle-East (12; 44 cities) , Asia-Pacific (21; 175 cities). So, obviously Clipper is Alive & Well : -)


TIA & Enjoy ! (10th October 2012, 11:05; 13th November 2015)


Original Welcome Page for Clipper... Clipper... Clipper

This is the original Welcome Page for Clipper... Clipper... Clipper, which I am republishing for historical and sentimental reasons. The only changes that I have made was to fix all the broken links. BTW, the counter from counter.digits.com is still working :-)

Welcome to Chee Chong Hwa's Malaysian WWW web site which is dedicated to Clipperheads throughout the world.

This site started out as a teeny-weeny section of Who the heck is Chee Chong Hwa ? and has graduated into a full blown web site of more than 140 pages (actually hundreds of A4 size pages) ! This is due to its growing popularity and tremendous encouragements from visiting Clipperheads from 100 countries worldwide, from North America, Central America, Caribbean, South America, Europe, Middle-East, Africa and Asia-Pacific. Thanx Clipperheads, you all made this happen !


What is Clipper ?

You may ask, what is this Clipper stuff ? Could Clipper be something to do with sailing as it is the name of a very fast sailing American ship in the 19th century ?

Well, Clipper or to be precise, CA-Clipper is the premier PC-Software development tool for DOS. It was first developed by Nantucket Corporation initially as a compiler for dBase3+ programs. Since then, CA-Clipper has evolved away from its x-base roots with the introduction of lexical scoping & pre-defined objects like TBrowse. As at today, the most stable version ofClipper is 5.2e while the latest version, 5.3a was introduced on 21 May 1996.

As at 11th November, 1996, an unofficial 5.3a fixes file was made available by Jo French. See the About CA-Clipper 5.3a section for more details. BTW, Jo French uploaded the revised 5.3a fixes file on 20th November, 1996.

Latest News

The latest news is that CA has finally released the long-awaited 5.3b patch on 21 May, 1997.

For 5.3b users, you must a take a look at Jo French's comments on unfixed bugs in 5.3b.

BTW, have you used Click ? If you're a serious Clipperprogrammer and need an excellent code formatter, Click is a natural choice. How to get it ? Simple, access Phil Barnett's site via my Cool Clipper Sites.

32-bits Clipper for Windows ?

Have you tried Xbase ++ ? Well, I have and compared to Delphi (my current Windows programming tool of choice), I'm still sticking to Delphi.

Anyway, you should visit the Alaska Home Page. Give it a chance and then draw your own conclusions !.

The Harbour Project

Is this the future of Xbase ? Take a look at at the Harbour Project

You are Visitor # ...

According to counter.digits.com, you are visitor since 3 June 1996.

If you like or dislike what you see on this website, please drop me a line by clicking the email button at the bottom of this page or better still, by filling out the form in my guest book. If you are not sure what to write,click here to take a look at what other Clipperheads have to say.