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<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Revert a dBASE 7 table to dBASE 5 |
  
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<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Revert a dBASE 7 table to dBASE 5 |
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Although the dBASE table format for many years has been almost a golden standard for data exchange between applications, this seems to have struck after the dBASE level 5.
For example MS Access has among other formats (in earlier versions) accepted dBASE table imports, but only up to dBASE level 5!
Many other applications (including MS Excel) simply haven't developed dBASE import beyond level 5.
Though remarkably embracing, the dBASE 7 format (since 1997) seems to have met resistance with it's much changed architecture embedding value checks and other features into the very table file vs. previously via associated files. Also the use of long field names, and the use of new (i.e. just modern) data types Long and Double as well as Autoinc fields and built in Required attributes, etc., seems to have been considered more than worth the effort for third party developers.
•Close PdxEditor.
•Set the BDE database engine DBASE driver setting to use (no higher than) Level 5 as the default level.
See BDE Configuration: Native database level settings. You may also use the easy BDEconfig.exe as distributed along with the PdxEditor.
•Reopen PdxEditor and select dBASE to be the working format via the PdxEditor File menu.
The working 'Create format' should now show in the upper panel next to the navigator.
•Open the table to convert, and do prepare the field names to be truncated to no more than 10 characters avoiding duplicate names after truncating.
•Create and run a simple SQL query
SELECT * FROM sourcetable
•Export the result as a table via the Export menu.
The resulting table will be in the dBASE 5 or 4 format depending on field types included, all field names truncated to UPPERCASE max. 10 characters, and the data types Autoinc, Long and Float will have been converted to NUMERIC as well as DateTime converted to CHARACTER, all preserving the original data.