ADD OBJECT to subcontainer of object being defined - visual-foxpro

Question

I'm writing a program to generate a VFP form class with lots (90+ each) of labels and radio buttons on it. That's the easy part. (and yes, I know that's a lot of radio buttons, but that's what the users want).
We have several VCXs in our application which do something similar, but not with anywhere near as many individual controls. So, rather than spend a huge fraction of my life dragging and dropping fields around, and realizing that I happen to have a handy list of all the fields, their options and default values, I used the 'View Class Code' option from the Class Browser to get a sample of what the code looks like as a base. Then I wrote code to generate a PRG with all the pieces I need.
My actual problem is that the code output by 'View Class Code' seems to include invalid syntax:
DEFINE CLASS form40 AS frmae
Height = 427
Width = 710
ScrollBars = 2
DoCreate = .T.
Visible = .T.
Name = "form40"
ADD OBJECT form40.cntouter.cntform40 AS cntctrls WITH ;
Top = 175, ;
Left = 2, ;
Visible = .T., ;
Name = "Cntform40"
ENDDEFINE
The class frmae is a class (from a VCX) which includes a container called 'cntouter'. Class cntctrls is the container that contains all the labels/radio buttons.
The problem is that apparently you can't, in the DEFINE CLASS command, ADD OBJECT to a member. The dotted syntax causes a syntax error. Yet, this technique is used in the 'View Class Code' output.
I suspect I could get around this by generating an Init method which calls ADDOBJECT() to add my control container to cntouter, but I'd rather have it in the class definition.

Answer 1

The "View Class Code" option doesn't produce runnable code; it never has.
My suggestion for doing what you need is to create an option button class with the appearance that you want. Then, use your existing list to populate a cursor and write code that spins through that and adds option buttons to a container class.
The key thing you need to know here is that you can run code in the IDE that affects a form or class that's open in the Form Designer or Class Designer. That's what Builders do. So rather than generate a code-based class, use code to create a visual class.

Answer 2

If you want to do this in code, then first you shouldn't depend view code as Tamar already pointed out. You can do any form and its controls in code (with the exception of one or two activex controls maybe) but you need to understand how to code container type controls. First, to add a class from a class library you need to sepcify its source. ie:
add object myContainer as MyBeautifulContainer from myClasslib.vcx
wouldn't work. Instead you would need to define a class in your code like this:
define class form40 as form
* ...
add object myContainer as MyContainer with ...
* ...
enddefine
define class myContainer as MyBeautifulContainer from myClasslib.vcx
* additiobnal code if any
enddefine
Second, you would need to create your inner controls first and then add as needed to create the outermost object.
AT designtime, you could go to command window, pop up a code window:
modify command [enter]
and then using ASELOBJ() function you can get a reference to any object on the form you are designing. Onece you have the desired reference(s), you can add and arrange objects within that code window programmatically, select the code and execute selection (erase the controls, correct your code and retry if you can't do it right for the first time). That is temporary "do and throw away" style builder.