I copied a new version of a table into an existing vfp installation and when it then tries to access that table it comes up with a variable not found error. The old version and new version of the table appear to have the same structure. Why could this happen? Does the dbc need to be updated in some way if I copy a new version of the table in. The structure is the same, but the data in it is different.
I copied the table in in Windows Explorer.
Was the table that you've copied in "freed" from it's previous DBC before copying? If not, as soon as you attempt to USE it in the new location then I believe VFP will try to locate the DBC that it belongs to.
If you believe the table structure to be identical then you might be better off leaving the existing one in place and just ZAPping it to clean it out then appending the records from the other copy... of course you might need to temporarily switch off any INSERT triggers or row-level validation if you've got anything clever happening therein such as updating a "last modified" field. AutoInc fields will also need to be handled with care too, but it doesn't sound like this is something you're expecting to do on a regular basis so shouldn't be too onerous as a one-off exercise.