Preserving dBASE (I...
 
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Preserving dBASE (III and IV) .DBT files

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(@gapodaca)
Posts: 14
Active Member
Topic starter
 

Hi FF,

Recently, I've come across some old diskettes containing multiple dBASE III and IV files. For the most part, these databases are flat-files (I'm not even sure if the SW was capable of relational databases back then TBH), so my immediate plan of action for these .DBF files are to somehow convert them to .CSV files (still have to tinker around with this, so if you have suggestions, please share, though I am planning on downloading the 30-day trial of dBASE 11 and see what comes of it).

However, I'm asking the larger community what to do in regards to .DBT (memo/text) files that are associated with some of the .DBF files. I tried opening them up in QuickView Plus, and while the text renders with some funky graphics, I'm wondering if anyone has come across a solution for more comprehensively "integrating" these with their respective file (e.g. is there a way to "natively" view these .DBF and .DBT files somewhere?). They won't open in the dBASE 11 trial SW I downloaded.

Any input, as always, would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks in advance.

 
Posted : 01/05/2018 7:06 pm
(@tonyc)
Posts: 27
Eminent Member
 

gapodaca,

In dBase the relations were managed by the programmer. A .dbf file contains the data description and the data. There can be one or more index files depending on how the record lookup needed to be done. I never used the memo or .dbt field but I recall they were useful but funky.

As I recall, a single .dbt file contains the date for all memo fields in a given .dbf file. The value stored in the memo field in the dBase record (in the dbf file) is the block number for the corresponding record in the .DBT file.

You do not open the .dbt files directly. When the .dbf file is opened dBase detects that there are memo fields and opens the required .dbt files. When a record is displayed on the screen, dBase automagically retrieved the appropriate data from the .dbt file.

Keep in mind for a given .dbf file and the memo file(s) (.dbt) should be in the same directory.

There is an open source project that has been around for years that duplicates most if not all of the dBase functionality. It is now known as Xbase and is on Source Forge.

TonyC

 
Posted : 09/07/2018 7:11 pm
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