dBASE Reader and Converter

File Release Notes and Changelog

Release Name: dbf-0.7

Notes:
dbf version 0.7
dBASE reader and converter for dBASE databases
Author: Bjoern Berg
Email: clergyman@gmx.de

dbf is an easy-to-use command line tool to show and convert the content 
of dBASE III, IV, and 5.0 files. It reads dBASE databases and prints the
content to the screen or converts it to comma-separated (*.csv) files 
which can be opened in Excel, StarOffice, and most other spread sheets. 
It can also be used to show some statistics about the content.

This programme bases on the source of Joachim Astel published
16/01/1995 in de.comp.databases and was improved and extended at some
points. At the moment binaries could be received during
http://www.anubisnet.de for Windows and Linux.


Features:
=========

- CSV Converter
dBASE III could be easily converted to CSV-files which could be opened with the
most popular spread sheets.

- SQL Exporteur
dbf supports since version 0.6 an experimental export to SQL instruction setting files,
so called SQL statements. 

- Code Pages
dBASE III files were now automatically encoded with the optimal chars and umlauts
for american, english and western european data sets.

- Endianess-save
Since version 0.5, dbf is usable on nearly every architecture, if it is Big Endian 
or Little Endian. 


Support:
========

For these platforms and database formats we can guarantee that dbf works

Platform:
---------
Linux 		i386	AXP		PPC
Windows		i386
MacOS X		PPC
Darwin
*BSD		i386
AIX 4.3.3


Database:
---------
dBASE III
dBASE IV
dBASE 5.0

ATTENTION: Since version 0.7 we cannot guarantee, that dbf supports the above 
mentioned platforms and operating systems any longer because of some major and
important changes in the code.


Compiling and Installation:
===========================

See INSTALL and http://anubisnet.sf.net/support.php for more details.


Usage:
======

These commands are for all versions:
------------------------------------

- in general

dbf --csv <csv-filename> <dbf-file> 
dbf --sql <sql-filename> <dbf-file>
dbf --view-info <dbf-file>
dbf --help or -h for help

You could start the programme as follows:

dbf C:\My Files\mydbf.dbf
dbf /home/<user>/mydbf.dbf

and displays the whole data on console.

- converting into comma separated files (CSV) Datei

dbf --csv mycsv.csv C:\Eigene Dateien\mydb.dbf
dbf --csv mycsv.csv /home/<user>/mydb.dbf

- converting into SQL statements

Please note that the sql-filename also reflects the name for the table that is 
created.

dbf --sql mysql.sql C:\Eigene Dateien\mydb.dbf
dbf --sql mysql.sql /home/<user>/mydb.dbf

Since dbf 0.7 dbf supports also the following handlers:
-------------------------------------------------------

--trim {r|l|b} 
Trims whitespaces in dBASE-files if necessary (r)ight, (l)eft or on (b)oth sides
of a data set.

--separator {c}
With the flag separator you are now able to define your own separator between your 
CSV data sets. The default is ",".

--noconv
Disables the experimental code page conversion.

--debug {0-9}
Defines the different debug levels.


Comments on some functions:
---------------------------

- show file statistic
Since version 0.3.0 the statitical output and information about the fields are no 
longer displayed automatically, but can be shown with the flag "--view-info".

- using Code Pages
Since version 0.2.5 dbf has the ability to encode umlauts and chars of western 
european languages. With version 0.3.0 dbf can do this automatically, so that the 
flag -cs is outdated and no longer in use.

- Override System Check
With the flag --ppc you can disable the architecture check, so that you can give dbf
a try on your Big Endian system. Maybe it works (only active in beta and development versions)


Frequently Asked Questions / Help:
==================================

See the attached file FAQ or have a look at 
http://anubisnet.sf.net/support.php for more help.

Subscribe to our mailinglist for every question: 
http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dbf-general


Contributors:
=============

see CREDITS for more details
If you want to contribute to dbf or any other project of anubisnet, have a look at 
our website: http://anubisnet.sourceforge.net/volunteer/index.php.
See also FAQ for more information on dbf, and how to help on this project.


Copyright:
==========

(c) 2002 - 2003, Bjoern Berg

Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute and sell this software
and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee,
provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and
that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear
in supporting documentation. The author makes no representations
about the suitability of this software for any purpose.
It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.	


Comments, suggestions and bugs to: clergyman@gmx.de






Changes:
0.7		STABLE
2003-09-14	(Release-Date)
Changelog send in by Mikhail Teterin:
- Totally reworked options parsing.
- Using the new options-parsing scheme, I added the way to specify the desired CSV separator, 
  debug level, and string-trimming option (below).
- When outputing the SQL file, strings, probably, should not be trimmed, and that is now a 
  default. The trimming can now be specified as:
		--trim {r|l|b}
- The two codepage-conversion functions combined into one, which is also made table-driven.
- Record-conversion can now be turned off with the --noconv option.
- While input is still opened and read directly with open/read (perhaps, it should stay 
  that way), the output file is operated on using the stdio functions fopen() and fprintf(),
  fputs, putc().
- Some reorganization in the variable-declaration and other cleanups...