Hi all!

I'm a systems administrator, and only very recently the need has arisen
for me to enter our software vendor's db directly, so I'm a really
really newb. at this...

In the Btrieve db of this vendor (with whom I dropped this question as
well, but due to serious incompetence in db building on their part, I am
not putting my money on them coming with a solution) there is a table.
within that table is an ASCII string which has a defined length of 40
characters.

The mission is simple: I need it to be 80.

Using DDF Edit I was able to do this, promptly after which other Btrieve
utils started complaining and the db client went out with a bang... Good
thing I did it on a completely isolated testing environment ;-)
Error messages:

==========
DFBTRERR Index segment field structure m File samenl, Index 2, Segment
1, Field OMSCHR

Technical Details
Error Number: 20485
Line Number: 244921
===========

File name is correct, the Index 2 is the first index in that file to
mention the field OMSCHR.

Poking around some more, I found an HDRDEF.BTR and within it two fields
called Reclen and Reclen_Used.
Since the numbers within these fields were identical to the sum of all
lenghts of the file, I added 40 to both numbers (again making it the sum
of all lengths) and saved it away.

Between tries and attempts I have been rebuilding the .ddf files and the
file itself regularly.

Now the client boots, responds & kicks arse again. Thing is, within the
client I still can't put more characters in the field.
The DDF Edit can cope with it, and even enter 80 characters (which are
then succesfully stored). However, if I try to access the properties of
Index 2 it goes byebye.
The DB Explorer won't open the file anymore giving the abovementioned
error.
Another client we use (for inserting text in Word) gives the error, but
continues to run, and inserts up to 80 characters from the field
successfully.

I'm confused...
I bet I am not doing some very simple thing, but I could really use a
pointer as to what that thing is.

Thanks in advance,

Ronald

You probably need to rebuild both the DDF and the Data File.

Our Data Manager Enterprise will let you do both.

http://www.classicsoftware.com/prod09.htm and
http://www.classicsoftware.com/pro010.htm

However, after rebuild the issue is whether the vendors application is using
the DDF for accessing the file in question. They may instead have embedded
application with the 40 bytes hard coded in their program. In that case the
vendor would need to make changes to their program and recompile it in order
for it to work.

"Ronald van Zantvoort" <The_LoekiSPAMBUSTLINE (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote