Fed up with seeing SET PATH TO TO in your code? Here's how to banish it for good

If you use Intellisense in Visual FoxPro 7.0 or above, the chances are that you've been caught in the 'double TO' trap. You start typing a command such as SET PATH. As you do so, Intellisense obligingly inserts the next word, which is always TO. From years of habit, you type that same word yourself, and end up with SET PATH TO TO in your code - definitely not what you want.

Fortunately, this behaviour is easy to switch off. Just open the Intellisense Manager from the Tools menu. Go to the Advanced tab, click on the Edit Properties button and highlight the lEnableFullSetDisplay entry in the Property list. Then change the contents of the Value box from T to F and close the dialogue.

From now on, Intellisense will refrain from adding TO to many SET commands - but, unfortunately, not all of them. The commands that are no longer expanded include SET CLASSLIB, SET COVERAGE, SET CURRENCY, SET DATASESSION, SET DEFAULT, SET MEMOWIDTH, SET NULLDISPLAY, SET PATH, SET PROCEDURE, SET REFRESH and SET UDFPARMS. Those which are immune to this treatment are SET COLLATE, SET DATABASE and SET STRICTDATE.

If you decide that you prefer the default behaviour after all, you can easily restore it. Just repeat the steps described above, changing the contents of the Value box back to T.

Mike Lewis Consultants Ltd. January 2004.