[DB-SIG] dbf memo access

Carl Karsten carl at personnelware.com
Mon Apr 2 01:01:50 CEST 2007


M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
> On 2007-04-01 22:52, Carl Karsten wrote:
>> I need to read (not write) some dbf memo data (memo is dBase's datatype to store 
>> 'unlimited' text, much like a blob or text field.)  to make things worse, 
>> various implementations of the dbf engine have different formats for storing 
>> memos - I forget what the dBaseIII file name was, but I currently need VFP's, 
>> which is filename.FPT (fox pro text)
>>
>> The few hits I got on google didn't make it clear if they supported any sort of 
>> dbf memo, let alone VFP's.
>>
>> I do most of my work in linux, so hoping for something other than the odbc way, 
>> but I can use that if it is my only choice.
> 
> If you only need to do this once, then using the MS FoxPro ODBC on Windows
> is the best and easiest way to extract the data.
> 
> Some other references that might help:
> 
> Read dBase3 in Python:
>     http://cwashington.netreach.net/depo/view.asp?Index=102&ScriptType=python
> 

             elif type == 'M':
                 # We ignore the memo field
                 pass


> Read dBase and xBase files:
>     http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/362715
> 

             M for ascii character memo data (real memo fields not supported)



Looks like I am  going to have to figure out the odbc thing.  Thanks for 
confirming that I wasn't missing something.

Carl K


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