Things to fix or better standardize in the current de-facto xbase standard

Draft

"Set printer to [file] xxx ", Although supported by most dialects, its behavior and syntax is sometimes inconsistent. Since this is a very useful command for HTML generation, it is hard to avoid.
Standard way to issue SQL commands. (Or, automatic translation. See later suggestion with example.)
"Set Decimals" should only refer to non-formatted display items, not how calculations are done.
"Total on xxx + yyy + zzz to a" Allowing multiple fields for the key clause. (Clipper does not do this.) This is related to the possible improvements of ways to mix data types in key (ordering) clauses.
Standardized direct file i/o ("Fopen()" for example)
Optional data dictionary, not a forced one. Example: "Set dictionary to dict1.dic" (This topic can fill another paper and is covered in a related web page.)
Optional single-or-multi file options. MS-Access, for example, prefers to have all tables in one file (including data dictionary). This is desirable in some cases, but not all.
Links or emulators into non-dbf tables, preferably without changing the table manipulation syntax. For example "replace all pay with rate * hours" would internally get translated to SQL "Update payroll set pay = rate * hours"
Default file type option. (FoxPro and others keep changing the default file type so that one must buy an upgrade to be compatible.) Example: SET DEFFORMAT TO DBASE3X
Have optional specific comparing functions instead of using SET EXACT.
The REPLACE command sometimes cannot be used to update a variable in another area. Having a consistent way to give commands to the non- current area would be desirable. For example, a command such as "skip(myarea)" is not always accepted.
Have an optional simple syntax for distinguishing fields from variables. For example, use a colon or $ before a fieldname to indicate that it is not a variable. Perhaps:
```
     SET DISTINQUISH TO ":"
  
```
or a period that also acts as the alias seperator. Example:
```
        .fieldx            && without alias
        aliasx.fieldx      && with alias
  
```
Error handling is not standardized.
In some implementations of xbase, a user-defined function is quite slow. This makes one reluctant to write modular functions to simplify some programming tasks. (This is not really a language problem, but is one of my major gripes.)
The NOED or NOUPDATE clause syntax is not consistent for opening with read-only access.
SET NEAR ON is a nice feature to standardize. (seen in FoxPro and dBASE)
Standard way of generating unique filenames. (This is often needed for temp files in multiuser environments. There are current ways to get this, but it its not always easy).
Standard way of obtaining the next available area. Example: SELECT AVAILABLE()
Actually aliases should be more like file handles in C, eliminating the need to specify an area before opening a table. All USE statements would be in a new area.
Standard way of linking to external API's, like C++ modules, OCX, etc.
Standard way of specifying permanent indexes. (One nifty approach is to have a file with the same root name, but with a ".PIX" extension in the same directory. PIX stands for "permanent index". If the interpreter sees this file, it then keeps these indexes in-sync. This requires no new language clauses, except perhaps for building new PIX files.)
Procedures or functions with the same name as the file name (.PRG) tend to confuse some dialects or require proprietary switches to work around.
Standard ALLTRIM() function to trim on both right and left sides.
Replacement of proprietary binary MEMO links with a character file name or numeric reference number to a file or memo structure.
Better handling of work area aliases. For example, it is difficult to pass an alias as a procedure parameter and have fields in that procedure operate on it. This can currently be done with macros, but its not very elegant.
The Scan/Endscan construct is common and useful, but not standardized. It is also not documented whether or not the original area is automatically re-selected at the bottom of the loop.
Standardized way of specifying parameters as read-only (passed by value).
Standardize the use of the WHILE clause.
Have a Maxlen() function in addition to the Len() function for database systems that support variable-length character fields. A Dec() function would also be nice to determine the number of decimal places.
A simple way to move a single record from one existing table to another. For example, FoxPro had a "Copy To Array" command. Although a temporary or dummy record may be more natural than an array. Perhaps something like:
```
   Copy record from <alias1> to <alias2>
 
```
This relates a bit to the issue of editing to a dummy record and then moving it to perm when validated. Handling this process requires some thought.
A way to automatically assign a unique record identifier without relying on the Recno(). Recno changes when the table is packed. Thus, it is not permanent enough to serve as a relational key reference.
Other stuff that I did not think of at the time of writing.

Note that my article on Table Oriented Programming lists other concepts which may be integrated into Xbase.

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