Converting Microsoft Works databases.... *shudder*

[Larry Bates]

Michael B. Trausch wrote:
> I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with this.  Someone I
> know is trying to move away from Microsoft Works, and I am trying to
> look into a solution that would convert their data in a lossless fashion
> to a more modern format.  The database has more than 65K rows, so
> converting it to be an Excel spreadsheet, would, AFAIK, not be an option.
> 
> It would seem that MS Works can export the database as a DBF format
> database, though I have not tried it.  Before I get started, I was
> wondering if anyone has been through this problem in the past and used
> Python to solve the problem.  Knowing nearly nothing about the DBase
> family of application software, and database formats, I find myself
> feeling like the information out there is, frankly, a bit overwhelming.
> 
> Would the recipe specified in the "dbf to csv" thread be useful here for
> a file in DBase IV format?  It of course uses the same extension, but I
> am not sure if the file semantics are at all similar.  The idea at the
> end would be to probably create a database on an small SQL server (like
> MySQL) and let the person access their data using ODBC on their Windows
> workstation so that they can create form letters and the like.  They do
> not have access to MS Office's Access product, nor do they wish to use
> OOo Base (and I can't say that I blame them -- it seems to crash far too
> often to be considered reliable stuff).
> 
> 	-- Mike
MS ships ODBC interface to xBase databases in all versions of Windows.
You don't need Access.  Just create DSN to your exported dBase database
and MS Word, MS Excel, and any other ODBC aware product can read the
data.  If the data size is large or if you want to move to server, you
can do that later.

-Larry