Harbour / dBase III plus

[Juerg Baier]

Dear Group

I allways was creatting and changing my database structures with my old dBase III plus.
Now, after doing a REINDEX or APPEND under Harbour (Version 3, Windows XP, HBMK2) I can't open the database with dBase again.
Message: "Keine DBASE Datenbank"

Within Clipper it worked perfekt!
Is it time to forget my dBase tools? ;-)

Regards,
Jürg Baier

[Franz]

Open your database with Clipper DBU.exe then F3 (Create) and F4 (Save).

I have sometime the same problem.

I think Harbour write something different in header.

Ciao

Franz

[Giovanni Di Maria]

Hi

I use CDBF to modify DBF.

http://www.whitetown.com/cdbf 

Giovanni Di Maria

[Andrzej P. Wozniak]

From: Juerg Baier <juerg...@musikbaier.ch>
Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2012 10:45 AM

> Dear Group
>
> I allways was creatting and changing my database structures with my old
> dBase III plus.

DBase III+ is not fully Y2k compliant.

> Now, after doing a REINDEX or APPEND under Harbour (Version 3, Windows
> XP, HBMK2) I can't open the database with dBase again.
> Message: "Keine DBASE Datenbank"
> Within Clipper it worked perfekt!
> Is it time to forget my dBase tools? ;-)

You should do it 12 years ago.
Read: http://www.ghservices.com/gregh/clipper/trix0011.htm
http://www.the-oasis.net/clipy2k.htm (The .DBF header problem and so on)

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Andrzej P. Woźniak





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Tani hosting dla Twoje strony www.klatka.pl juz 29 zl/rok

[Jürg Baier]

Thank you Andrzej

The links are very interesting!
I never had Y3k problems with my clipper applications. I just set epoch
to 1950 and reindexed all.

Regards
J�rg

[Juerg Baier]

Thanks Franz!

Ok it works with DBU, witch I did not use since over 20 years.
But DBU is a 'CPU-Power-eater'! It needs at least 98%, even if you are doing nothing with it! And this way it's very spongy to work with this tool! Maybe it's possible to treat the DBU.EXE with the CLIP2F tool, to stop the looping.

The dBaseIII+ command line interpreter works perfekt and fast!

Gruss
Jürg

[Juerg Baier]

Thank you Giovanni!
I will try this.
Regards
Jürg

[G3...@aol.com]

In a message dated 24/11/2012 21:08:49 GMT Standard Time, juerg...@musikbaier.ch writes:

Ok it works with DBU, witch I did not use since over 20 years.
But DBU is a 'CPU-Power-eater'! It needs at least 98%, even if you are doing nothing with it! And this way it's very spongy to work with this tool! Maybe it's possible to treat the DBU.EXE with the CLIP2F tool, to stop the looping.

================================

Try recompiling DBU in Harbour. I have done that and it takes about 7-11% of the CPU time on my PC.

 

Regards

Bob
Bob F Burns
C Eng, FIET, MSE
Amateur Radio Callsign: G3OOU
Registered RSGB Instructor
G-QRP Member No: 6907; Zone: 14, QRA: IO91WH; WAB: TQ25
Secretary of Crystal Palace Radio & Electronics Club: www.g3oou.co.uk
Technical web site: www.qsl.net/g3oou
Follow G3OOU as @BobFBurns on Twitter Http://twitter.com/BobFBurns

[Richard Acosta]

How can such old tool take more than 5% of a modern CPU? Those tools were made for 286 and 386 CPUs.
Even if it takes too much power, it should do it for a very short time. (milliseconds)

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[Steve Scott]

I've yet to manage to build Harbour at all - just can't make head or tail of it all.... but...I do know the answer to this, lol.

 

These older dos programs check the keyboard for input on a continuous cycle, which uses CPU power. 

 

There are two solutions that have been used here. 

 

First is to build in an Inkey replacement that only checks the keyboard input intermittantly - once written it is linked in and called via a simple header file replacement entry [system .ch file]

 

Second is run a untility that modifies the EXE file to the same effect.  

 

I've used both and they worked well.  I've not done clipper for ages...

[raju]

dbase III plus can be run on Windows XP from the command prompt.

By using dbDOS  you can run our good old dbase III plus even on 64 bit
machines. Windows 7 etc.

Please let me know the need for changing the structure of a dbf file so often.

Once we open a dbase III plus dbf file in any other xbase applications, the chances of
opening the same again in dbase III plus is bleak.

If you are seriously using dbase III plus you can continue to use it as I have been doing
even today.

G.BADARIVISHAL
Mysore
South India.

25-11-2012

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[Przemyslaw Czerpak]

On Sat, 24 Nov 2012, Andrzej P. Wozniak wrote:

Hi Andrzej,

> > I allways was creatting and changing my database structures with my old
> > dBase III plus.
>
> DBase III+ is not fully Y2k compliant.

I do not agree with you.
It's a classic example what happens when someone tries to "FIX"
something what should not be fixed at all.
There was not Y2K problem and it was precisely defined that last
two digits from the year should be saved in header. Quite good
definition. Unfortunately someone decided that it's time to break
this definition and store year-1900 and now we have real Y2K
problem created by this decision and older tools which makes
strict header validation refuse to open such tables.

> > Now, after doing a REINDEX or APPEND under Harbour (Version 3, Windows
> > XP, HBMK2) I can't open the database with dBase again.
> > Message: "Keine DBASE Datenbank"
> > Within Clipper it worked perfekt!
> > Is it time to forget my dBase tools? ;-)
> You should do it 12 years ago.
> Read: http://www.ghservices.com/gregh/clipper/trix0011.htm
> http://www.the-oasis.net/clipy2k.htm (The .DBF header problem and so on)

There is nice table on the first page which well shows that the
definition should not be touched at all and nothing wrong would
happen - full backward compatibility.
Probably I should add new RDDI_* action to force strict DBF header
definition and storing year as last two digits to eliminate this
problem.

best regards,
Przemek

[Luigi Grella]

I have found DBXL as a useful ad hoc tool to test databases, create new databases and test prg files quickly.

You can download it from here.  Unzip the file and read the Readme.txt file

https://www.box.com/s/jwtazxygk4q49mjzaaay

[Milan Drazic]

Luigi, thank you for this great tool.

In Readme.txt it is mentioned that the source files could be compiled with added user functions.
Can those source files be found somewhere? If one compiles them with Harbour then the
problems with 64bit OS or NTX index files can be easily solved.

[TomC]

I tried to post a reply earlier, but I'm not seeing it show up, so I'll try once more.  I'm attaching an executable file, but THIS time I've attached it as FixUpdYr.xex in case the posting process has a problem with an exe attachment.

 

I wrote this little program and compiled it with Clipper '87.  I've also compiled it with Harbour, but that is only necessary if you're in a 64-bit environment and cannot run 16-bit Clipper programs.  This program will fix the problem which dBase III Plus has with a dbf file after it has been changed and saved by a Harbour compiled program (or by Excel, for that matter).  It's the Last Update value in the dbf file header which is the problem.  dBase III Plus cannot deal with a value in the header which is beyond the year 2000, but frankly that value isn't used very often, and I agree with you that dBase III Plus is still a very handy "dot prompt".  (The dBase III Plus Error Message in English is "Not a dBASE database".)

 

If you have a file named DataFile.dbf, just execute the attached program (after saving it as an "exe" file) at a DOS prompt as follows:

 

FixUpdYr  DataFile

 

It runs "instantly" and fixes the dbf file header so that dBase III Plus can open the file.  If you have some process using batch files, just add a line to the batch file after your Harbour program closes the file, and the dbf file will be usable in dBase III Plus.

 

TomC

[franvgls]

Dear TomC,
I've been struggling to find a handy solution to reconvert DbaseIII files handled with Harbour to the original DBIII format that can be opened with Dbase III and other older programs. The program you mention seems the perfect solution, but as you say I haven't been able to find the EXE program, would it be a possibility to send it to me to fvgls at ono.com
Many thanks in advance if it were possible I would be really grateful.
Best regards
Fran

[newsr...@gmail.com]

Hi TomC,

Hopefully you still see this.  That FixUpdYr program is exactly what I have been looking for as we are experiencing the exact same issue migrating to Windows7.  Hopefully I can still get a copy of it.

If someone can please send me that little application (FixUpdYr.exe) it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Mike

[Tom Carpenter]

Mike,

I'm attaching a DOS/Windows executable version of my program.  I've named it with an "xex" file name extension since mail systems usually don't like attachments with an "exe" extension.  Just save the attachment to your computer and rename it to "exe" and it's ready to run.

The attached file is compiled with Harbour as a 32-bit executable program which means it will run on a 32-bit PC or on a 64-bit PC.

This little program has allowed me to keep using dBase III Plus as a very handy "dot prompt".  At some point I guess we all need to upgrade to a newer utility.  If there is anything newer which supports all the commands and utilities contained in dBase III Plus, I'd love to hear about it.

TomC.

[Voice Logic]

Thanks Tom,

Worked perfectly.

Mike

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