Re: I need an Informix .db file
On Mar 25, 4:40 am, bill <wgr...@draper.com> wrote: > On Mar 25, 7:13 am, "Art S. Kagel (Oninit)" <a...@oninit.com> wrote: > > > > > bill wrote: > > > All, > > > No such thing as a standard Informix .db file. What you have MAY be an > > UNLOAD or pipe delimited export file format, but Informix tools don't > > create such files with record layout headers, so it was probably created > > with someone's custom written tool. > > > Can you post the first few lines of he file? Maybe someone will > > recognize the format. > > > Art S. Kagel > > Oninit > > > > Could someone please send me an Informix .db file? I am trying to > > > debug something that is translating Informix .db's to text. I do not > > > have access to an Informix database server. The file can be just a few > > > records (around 100 would be fine) and I really do not care what the > > > contents are. The other thing is that the thing I am trying to debug > > > is working on .db files that are at least 20 years old. So if the > > > modern day Informix .db format is much different, then that does not > > > do me any good. I do know that what I am looking for seems to be > > > mostly ASCII and records start with a pipe "|" character. Also, I > > > believe that the "schema" for the file is at the beginning and mostly > > > is giving field sizes (which I also believe are fixed). > > > > TIA, > > > > Bill > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Informix-list mailing list > > > Informix-l...@iiug.org > > >http://www.iiug.org/mailman/listinfo/informix-list-Hide quoted text - > > > - Show quoted text - > > Unfortunately, I cannot since I do not have access to any of the > files. To the best of my recollection the .db files had the field > names and field lengths at the beginning and the records started with > the pipe "|". They also used the "*" preceding the pipe to indicate a > deleted record. They are binary files that contain mostly ASCII text. > I suspect the non-printing characters are characters such as STX and > ETX. I do not think there are any bytes with values greater than 127. > Also I believe that the fields are fixed width and not delimited by > anything. As Marco pointed out -the world has moved on since way back > then. I was just hoping that there might be someway to "Save as 3.3" > format, for instance. What you describe does not sound like any Informix database format I've ever heard of, including File-It! or Informix 3.30. Are you sure it is an Informix format? If it was a genuine Informix 3.30 .dbd file, then I would be able to help - I have conversion tools available. However, it doesn't sound like Informix, and I'm not aware of any two-letter ".db" extension ever being a part of mainstream Informix. There was the office package SmartWare - that might have included a database, and that might have used a .db extension...Google "smartware innovative database" turns up some plausible looking information, and various sites like www.smartware4.com, www.visualsmartware.com and www.faircom.com. It definitely included a database; I've not found (but not spent long looking for) the extension that identifies the database files. Good luck. -=JL=-