Re: VB6 connecting to ISAM Dat files

Thanks Jim

I've followed your links but I think they are for other types of COBOL db.

there seem to be several different special versions out there.

- COBOL for UNIX (several special formats)
- COBOL for Win (several special formats)

But, since I have managed to read one DAT file correctly with the eval tool
from Siber I beleive I now know the format.

"C-ISAM MicroFocus COBOL db for Win32"
sometime refered to as "COBOL MF files/db"

The SEQ files are not mention in any COBOL site I've found, but this is not
a problem since they are not "compiled" COBOL db files. they are pure Ascii
very nice tabbed text files. No problem to read them with notepad, and they
are small (<50 rec. / < 5 fields). so, maybe they are software unique.

I've also found several sites claiming to have good tools for handling this
type of database with ease.

ParkWay software http://www.parkway-software.com
Transoft http://www.transoft.com
Iway http://www.iwaysoftware.com
seeMore http://www.seemoretechnologies.com
ConnX http://www.connx.com
Pervasive http://www.pervasive.com
Liant http://www.liant.com
Attunity http://www.attunity.com
Siber http://www.siber.com

but they are all carefull with evaluation versions so I'll have to wait a
few days till I know prices and what they can do.

All except Siber claims to have ODBC drivers/adapters, several also to
support other languages apart of VB, (the one with a .)

Siber has a sequencial tool that works, it looks like it can be used live
and extracting everything (also by index) in a pretty ok way.

I'm writing all this in here so it can be found by other, it has taken me
over 30 hours to find them on internet and request prices and evaluation
versions.


Kjell Liljegren


"Jim Carlock" wrote:


"Kjell" wrote...
: but there seems to be a lot of different ISAM db's out there throught
: the history, does anyone recognize 'SoftOne' using ISAM db made of
: .DAT .IDX and .SEQ files ??
:
: It's a C-ISAM MicroFocus COBOL db

You can try here, but I could not find any .seq things there. Either
way, the dat and the idx formats turn up as old Outlook Express formats.

http://www.wotsit.org/

The other thing I found was a fetch application written in Perl.

http://arep.med.harvard.edu/labgc/jong/Fetch/

And then there is...

http://docs.hp.com/cgi-bin/doc3k/BB243390044.15145/33

Something that might help others help you, would be to post the
first ten letters / hex-code of what's in each one of the files.
Microsoft and other companies have used the first letters to id
various files, including executables which. Executables start
with MZ (the initials of the gentleman that developed the .exe
format).

Alot of the folks at Intel tend to put their initials on various
processors as well, hidden from normal view, but someone has a
very powerful enlarger and can read the stuff placed inside of a
tenth of a speck of dust.

Don't know if this is going to help at all.

--
Jim Carlock
North Carolina Swimming Pools, Spas And Water Features
http://www.aquaticcreationsnc.com/



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