Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!xanth!aiko
From: aiko@cs.odu.edu (John K Hayes)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: dBASE IV Problem - .DBT files
Message-ID: <9519@xanth.cs.odu.edu>
Date: 17 Jul 89 13:36:11 GMT
References: <150@dbase.UUCP> <171@cerc.wvu.wvnet.edu.edu>
Reply-To: aiko@cs.odu.edu (John K Hayes)
Organization: Old Dominion University; Norfolk, Virginia USA
Lines: 45

In article <171@cerc.wvu.wvnet.edu.edu> pelakh@babcock.cerc.wvu.wvnet.edu (Boris Pelakh) writes:
>From article <150@dbase.UUCP>, by awd@dbase.UUCP (Alastair Dallas):
>> 
>> I'm sorry I can't offer much help as to your DBT file problems.  Since the
>> DBF and DBT are separate files linked by pointers, system errors which
>> corrupt the pointers are naturally going to cause "a big mess."  From
>> your comments the exact nature of the fault was not clear, but it sounds
>> like you are able to recover your data.
>>


I have had a bit of trouble with DBT files too.  I modified a database
already in use by a Clipper program by changing a few Character fields
to Memo fields using Clipper's DBU, then tried to reload the data into the new 
structure with the new type.  The documentation says that this should work just 
fine; i.e. it should load the old data stored as Character type into the new 
field and store it as Memo type.  This did not work.  I continually got empty 
Memo fields where before there was Character data.  I was using dBASE IV to 
reload the data since I was doing it on a machine that does not have DBU
(I was converting the database on this machine to the new structure which
was developed on another machine).

Also - using dBASE IV to convert the structure resulted in a new database that
Clipper would not recognize - Memo fields empty or not.  I had to use Clipper's
DBU to convert the database (which, I think, still resulted in lost Character
data - I forget).

Of course -------- this particular database has more fields than dBASE allows.
But this did not present a problem before - I could still APPEND FROM, BROWSE,
etc. before when I had more fields than dBASE allowed but was not introducing
Memo fields.  The only thing it wouldn't let me do that I could see was
actually modify the structure - it would consider it an invalid structure.

A slight incompatibility here????

-- 
    ---{john hayes}  Old Dominion University; Norfolk, Virginia USA
                     internet: aiko@cs.odu.edu
                     Home: (804) 622-8348     Work: (804) 460-2241 ext 134  

                      <++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++>
Are you a Have or a Have_Not?  Because if you're a Have_Not, you've probably
had it; whereas, if you're a Have, you've probably got it and are going to 
give it away at some point in the future!       --- The Clash
                      <++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++>