Hello,

I am writing an application in C# that I am trying to integrate with a
legacy program that stores its information in Btrieve databases. I am
looking for information on how to do this.

Due to financial constraints, as well as licensing problems,
purchasing a copy of Progressive Server is not very feasible.
Basically, my program needs to be able to read the information stored
in this database without installing Progressive.

I am basically looking for one of two things: an open-source library
for reading btrieve data files, or a description of the file format.

I have been able to find many descriptions of file.ddf and field.ddf,
but the program I am integrating with only seems to use an index.ddf.
Any of the freeware programs I have found require a file.ddf and
field.ddf file to work.

There have been some hints that the SQL reference manual from the
Progressive website might have the file format I'm looking for, but I
have not been able to find any details.

This is all further complicated by the fact that I have no idea what
version of the file format I am working with, but I suspect it to be
pre-6.15.

If anyone could point me towards some solutions to any of these
problems, I would really appreciate it. I have been banging my head
against a wall all week. Thanks.

-Daniel

You have to figure out how much it's worth not to bang your head
against the wall

You were saying progressive but meant Pervasive. You can get there
workgroup edition which is good up to 5 users for around $50.00 per
user. You will have to have these drivers if you want to read your
data. No option of reading without.

You will need the DDF files if you want to use ODBC to access the
data. So you will need to build them. BtSearch at www.nssdd.com can
help you analyze the data structure and build the DDF files. Once you
have the drivers and the DDF files then download the SDK at the
www.pervasive.com site. That should get you rolling.

Gil

You have to figure out how much it's worth not to bang your head
against the wall

You were saying progressive but meant Pervasive. You can get there
workgroup edition which is good up to 5 users for around $50.00 per
user. You will have to have these drivers if you want to read your
data. No option of reading without.

You will need the DDF files if you want to use ODBC to access the
data. So you will need to build them. BtSearch at www.nssdd.com can
help you analyze the data structure and build the DDF files. Once you
have the drivers and the DDF files then download the SDK at the
www.pervasive.com site. That should get you rolling.

Gil

You have to figure out how much it's worth not to bang your head
against the wall

You were saying progressive but meant Pervasive. You can get there
workgroup edition which is good up to 5 users for around $50.00 per
user. You will have to have these drivers if you want to read your
data. No option of reading without.

You will need the DDF files if you want to use ODBC to access the
data. So you will need to build them. BtSearch at www.nssdd.com can
help you analyze the data structure and build the DDF files. Once you
have the drivers and the DDF files then download the SDK at the
www.pervasive.com site. That should get you rolling.

Gil

Hello,

Thank you very much for your help. I did indeed mean Pervasive and
not Progressive. I blame it on the hour I was posting at.

I don't necessarily want to use ODBC to access the data, although I
would prefer it. The problem with using a DDF builder is that I need
to read in this legacy data over and over again. The application I am
writing simply integrates with the older program, it doesn't replace
it. So, the option of running another application, especially an
application our end users would have to pay $150 for is not feasible.

If a program such as BtSearch exists, there must be some information
outside of Pervasive on how the file format is structured. That is
what I am looking for. Either that or a free toolkit for dealing with
it. The free part is very important. This is a student project, and
we don't have the resources to buy hundreds of dollars worth of
software or to license the Pervasive library for distribution with our
application.

-Daniel

On Feb 24, 6:31 am, nelsonsoft <nelsons... (AT) nssdd (DOT) com> wrote:

Hello,

Thank you very much for your help. I did indeed mean Pervasive and
not Progressive. I blame it on the hour I was posting at.

I don't necessarily want to use ODBC to access the data, although I
would prefer it. The problem with using a DDF builder is that I need
to read in this legacy data over and over again. The application I am
writing simply integrates with the older program, it doesn't replace
it. So, the option of running another application, especially an
application our end users would have to pay $150 for is not feasible.

If a program such as BtSearch exists, there must be some information
outside of Pervasive on how the file format is structured. That is
what I am looking for. Either that or a free toolkit for dealing with
it. The free part is very important. This is a student project, and
we don't have the resources to buy hundreds of dollars worth of
software or to license the Pervasive library for distribution with our
application.

-Daniel

On Feb 24, 6:31 am, nelsonsoft <nelsons... (AT) nssdd (DOT) com> wrote:

Hello,

Thank you very much for your help. I did indeed mean Pervasive and
not Progressive. I blame it on the hour I was posting at.

I don't necessarily want to use ODBC to access the data, although I
would prefer it. The problem with using a DDF builder is that I need
to read in this legacy data over and over again. The application I am
writing simply integrates with the older program, it doesn't replace
it. So, the option of running another application, especially an
application our end users would have to pay $150 for is not feasible.

If a program such as BtSearch exists, there must be some information
outside of Pervasive on how the file format is structured. That is
what I am looking for. Either that or a free toolkit for dealing with
it. The free part is very important. This is a student project, and
we don't have the resources to buy hundreds of dollars worth of
software or to license the Pervasive library for distribution with our
application.

-Daniel

On Feb 24, 6:31 am, nelsonsoft <nelsons... (AT) nssdd (DOT) com> wrote:

If you want to access the data directly which you can do and bypass
the DDF files you would have to know the structure of the data you are
accessing. Btrieve files can contain any type of data in the record
including binary data. So for each file you must know the record
structure. Then you can access the data using the Btrieve API. But
you will have to have the drivers. No way around that.

Gil

If you want to access the data directly which you can do and bypass
the DDF files you would have to know the structure of the data you are
accessing. Btrieve files can contain any type of data in the record
including binary data. So for each file you must know the record
structure. Then you can access the data using the Btrieve API. But
you will have to have the drivers. No way around that.

Gil

If you want to access the data directly which you can do and bypass
the DDF files you would have to know the structure of the data you are
accessing. Btrieve files can contain any type of data in the record
including binary data. So for each file you must know the record
structure. Then you can access the data using the Btrieve API. But
you will have to have the drivers. No way around that.

Gil