Can anyone Identify this Database format?

[Claude DeClercq]

Hi Everyone

I am converting an old PB for Dos app that interfaces with Accpac 6 for dos.
I would like to know what the database format is, so that I can export the information out into SQL Server or Access.
the file extensions are *.dbd and *.dbi (Index?)

Does anyone know how I can identify what version of the database this is?
I am assuming it is DBIII but none of my tools will recognise it as such

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[John Schexnaydre]

Accpac today uses Pervasive, so these could be old Btrieve files.
Btrieve extentions are set by the developer.

John



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[Mike Luther]

If this is early Btrieve, the .DBD extension probably is the database
and the .DBI is likely the or an index.

If this is Btrieve, 6.15, and you can get access to the Developer Kit,
which, of course, Pervasive has stopped supporting long ago, plus the
needed design specs for the file system, you likely can work with it.

There are a couple of Pervasive tools, actually part of the whole pack,
which can be used to dump the database, as well as repair one. That
can be blown to zilch if the design of the original provided for the
use of encryption, which was possible.

If this is DOS, a program like LIST which will give you a hex dump of
the file(s) won't tell you much about the file. I can look at lots of
them which I still use here and there is no real byte pattern which I
know about which will tell you this is a Btrieve file, class X or Y
or whatever.

But the program BUTIL can, as noted, provide you some help if you know
enough about this and that.


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Mike Luther
[email protected]

[Michael Mattias]

You could cheat: Contact the publishers of AccPac and see if they can supply info on the files you wish to export.

If they say 'no,' you're no worse off than now. Heads you win, tails you break even.

MCM

[Paul Purvis]

what i do is sometimes write a program to read the whole file as records of different lengths and print the records to the screen.
when i find somekind of replication of columns that are somewhat readable, i break the records down to information(fields), mostly starting with the second record,
sorry i do not have accpac, i guess that is accounting software.
paul


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[John Hackl]

Maybe you know all this, maybe you don't.

Those do not sound like accpac data files. The general ledger data file is glpst.???, see if you can find that one. It may be that any extension could be used, but I think just about everyone uses "dat" as an extension, so it would be glpst.dat.

Accpac 6 and prior data files are proprietary, they did not use a third party database. Accpac 6 has built in export support, though not for all the data. But just about everyone who uses accpac 6 also buys quik history and quik reports and they provide extensive reporting and export capabilities. Quik History (QHTRNS.DAT) files are more or less second copies of the accpac data files and in fact are much much better than accpac's native data files.

Without knowing what the powerbasic program does, or why anyone was using it, its hard to say how to get to the data. In general though, the powerbasic data is probably a copy of the same data within accpac and within quik history. If you have quik history, explore that first; it's pretty good to get at the data and its probably much better than using access or sql server.

[Paul Squires]

John Hackl is right on this one. The file format for version 6
is proprietary. I have done work on the GLPST and GLTRANS files
for a program that the Government of Canada uses (reads transactions
and does sales tax analysis).

AccPac switched to Pervasive Btrieve in their AccPac for Windows
products.

------------------
Paul Squires
Cheetah Database System - "Nothing runs like a Cheetah"
JellyFish Pro Editor - "Custom code editor for PowerBasic"
www.planetsquires.com
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Claude DeClercq]

You guys are right, it's not ACCPAC, I have a 3rd party utility written in PB that interfaces with ACCPAC.

I know now from a line of code, this is likely DBASE,
as the code has the following call: START.SEOR.DBASE

ANyway, I have tried to use DBASE III, and IV, but they don't seem to recognise the files.

Is there anyway to identify the file as DBASE? WHICH VERSION?

Thanks.

[Paul Squires]

Check the first byte of the file against the information
found at this link:
http://www.e-bachmann.dk/computing/d..._NOTE_1_TARGET



------------------
Paul Squires
Cheetah Database System - "Nothing runs like a Cheetah"
JellyFish Pro Editor - "Custom code editor for PowerBasic"
www.planetsquires.com
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Gary Stout]

Claude,
If you want to email me a sample of the data, I will take a look
and see if I can identify and possibly extract the data. If all
of the data is 'text' and not special ascii characters, it shouldn't
be too difficult. I have a some pretty good software for viewing
data files that will also allow fields to be created and then exported.

HTH,


------------------
Gary Stout
[email protected]

[Paul Squires]

Hi Gary,

What type of software do you use for this kind of stuff? For my
government work, I use IDEA and ACL. They both allow analyzing
of various data file types, creating file layouts, etc...



------------------
Paul Squires
Cheetah Database System - "Nothing runs like a Cheetah"
JellyFish Pro Editor - "Custom code editor for PowerBasic"
www.planetsquires.com
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Gary Stout]

Hi Paul,

I use a program called PDT put out by Pro~formance. It is very handy.
It will allow you to select where a field starts and stops, export
fields, even create a dbase file. The newest version,which I don't have
yet), will let you to left or right justify data within a field.

Sorry, I don't have the web site handy, but a google search for
either of the above should find a hit.

HTH,


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Gary Stout
[email protected]

[Claude DeClercq]

Hi Guys,

PDT is cool, the website is:
http://www.pro-central.com/

Thanks.