Re: Help!: Census/DBase snafu

jamesc@netcom.com (James Chuang) writes: >The dBase DBF format is probably recognized by more software than any other >database format. Even spreadsheets reads dBase fine. Various C libraries >and products exists on Unix and VMS which allows native access of dBase format. >I'm sure you have a favorite format. But it happens that there are more >computers running PC-DOS than any other OS in the world, and there are >more copies of software that reads dBase available. I'm sure the census >bureau could have formatted the data in Informix or Sybase or whatever else >is your favorite, but then the usability of the info by the general public >would be much limited. Echoing James comments, I would also point out that there are dBASE-compatible products for many other platforms. AT&T shipped a dBASE implementation for their 3B5 as well as the ill-fated 3B1. WordTech produces dBASE products for a variety of non-DOS platforms. FoxBASE (now owned by Microsoft) has product for both the DOS and Macintosh platforms and, last I heard, for Unix. The dBASE format is the database equivalent of TIFF & EPS for graphics, SYLK for spreadsheets, or RTF for word-processing. There are richer formats available, but these are the basics that products need to support for interchange. -- Dennis Cohen Claris Corp. **************************************************** Disclaimer: Any opinions expressed above are _MINE_!