dBase File Format

[Bruce Vander Werf]

I have a dBase file that was created along the way with the BDE that
does not seem to fit any of the file formats listed in the TI "dBase
DBF File Structure".

Specifically, it has a $04 as the first byte, the header seems to be
longer than 32 bytes, and has the word "DBWINUS" embedded in it.

When I look at this file with Database Desktop (Info Structure), it
reports it as a 'dBase for Windows' file, but does not show the size
and decimals for any numeric or floating point fields.

Can someone point me to some documentation on how this header is
structured? I need to convert this back to a dBase IV format (without
the BDE) so that I can use the file with another database engine.

Bruce Vander Werf
bru...@usa.net

[Markku Nevalainen]

Bruce Vander Werf wrote:
>
> Can someone point me to some documentation on how this header is
> structured? I need to convert this back to a dBase IV format (without
> the BDE) so that I can use the file with another database engine.

I don't know about the documentation. But if you have once_only
conversion problem, and the DBF table is not extremely huge,
try loading it to Excel, and then save it back in DBF format.
This has helped me with many DOS era DBF table types.

Markku Nevalainen

[Tomislav Kardaš]

Hi Bruce!

On Fri, 30 Jul 1999 15:29:20 GMT, bru...@usa.net (Bruce Vander Werf)
wrote:

>Specifically, it has a $04 as the first byte, the header seems to be
>longer than 32 bytes, and has the word "DBWINUS" embedded in it.

In BDE Administrator - under Configuration/Drivers/Native/DBASE you
have LEVEL parameter. By your description it might be that this DBASE
format require LEVEL 7, so check that parameter in BDE configuration
and than try to access table from the program.

hope that helps,
tomi.

[Bruce Vander Werf]

Thanks for the response, but I am not having trouble accessing the
file using the BDE. I do, however, need to convert it to a dBase IV
format *without* using the BDE, hence my need for documentation on
this header format.

On Fri, 30 Jul 1999 18:20:12 GMT, nomail@sorry (Tomislav Kardaš)
wrote:

Bruce Vander Werf
bru...@usa.net

[Bruce Vander Werf]

Thanks for the response, but I need to write a conversion of this file
format to dBase IV format for files already in the field. I could use
the BDE but I am going to a third-party solution, and don't want to
ship the BDE with my program.

On Fri, 30 Jul 1999 20:39:31 +0200, Markku Nevalainen <m...@iki.fi>
wrote:

Bruce Vander Werf
bru...@usa.net