>He wants me to ascertain independently, whether the
>programming changes are not extensive and that the
>costs of any additional tools required, are modest.

>The indexes are to be to the FoxPro CDX format and
>the memo files FPT types.

>Finally, anybody interested in taking on the task?

>Nicola

> If your delphi app uses BDE to access .dbf tables, then you will find
> yourself free for any changes needed for the delphi app.

> But your question itself has its own question.....

> Briefly, a dbaseIII table is not the same as a FoxPro dbf.

> In detail: the main difference among dbaseIV,III,FoxPro table is the
> associated index file (CDX/MDX/NDX/NTX etc) and the way memo fields
> are stored.  There are subtle difference in the DBF file itself. (only
> talking about character/numeric/memo fields)   Borland has stated that
> its BDE driver for foxpro is of some bug and data updating is not
> recommended.

> On Wed, 13 Mar 2002 23:17:36 +0000, Alan Secker
> <alansec...@globalnet.co.uk> wrote:

> >A friend of mine with a sizeable Delphi application
> >wishes to convert its principle data files from Dbase
> >IV to Dbase III for several reasons.

> >He wants me to ascertain independently, whether the
> >programming changes are not extensive and that the
> >costs of any additional tools required, are modest.

> >The indexes are to be to the FoxPro CDX format and
> >the memo files FPT types.

> >Finally, anybody interested in taking on the task?

> >Nicola

>When I tried this i had difficulty getting tables from dBase iv to iii
>format.  Although I got ndx indexes working i couldn't get real dbase
>iii to open the tables created by the database desktop.  So I'd create
>empty tables, make sure they can be opened by anything you want to work
>with them in, then copy the data into the new tables.  Then I'd create
>indexes etc and re-check.  I'd try to use dbase (append from...) or
>foxpro to do this, whichever format you are planning to use.

>Then I'd replace the TTable/tquery with either TDBF components or
>advantage components (which work with Clipper or Fox tables, I think).

>I'd prefer advantage for that reason.  Also it comes with advantage data
>architect, which can create and manipulate the tables.  It is free for
>local use and not that expensive for server deployment.

>This would have the advantage of getting rid of the BDE (the uses clause
>will need editing to get rid of dbtables or it will still look for the
>BDE at start up).

>The BDE won't use dbase iii indexes I think, so BDE is out.  Nor will it
>work with Foxpro - read only.

>How much work involved depends on how complex the app is.  If it was
>mainly components dropped onto forms then Gexperts replace components
>feature might do all the conversion for you.  If there was a lot of hand
>written code to make it work then there is a lot of work.

>All in all this isn't certain to be a trivial task.  It might be worth
>looking at going over to ADO, assuming there is a foxpro ole-db
>provider.  That way the next change should be a ten minute job <G>.  I
>think that would be a better return on effort.

> On Sat, 16 Mar 2002 09:30:56 +0000, Andrew Skinner
> <skin...@summerfld.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> Because of a simular problem I did the following
> I let Delphi's database desktop  build the dBase3 table Borrowing the structure
> of the original dBase4 table.
> then I used DBFTOOLS (freeware)  to append all the records from one table to the
> other.
> To see if it really worked I used Clippers DBU (dBase3)  and it worked well.
> to rebuild NTX indexes you can use Clipper  or dBase for NDX indexes

> >Hmm.

> >When I tried this i had difficulty getting tables from dBase iv to iii
> >format.  Although I got ndx indexes working i couldn't get real dbase
> >iii to open the tables created by the database desktop.  So I'd create
> >empty tables, make sure they can be opened by anything you want to work
> >with them in, then copy the data into the new tables.  Then I'd create
> >indexes etc and re-check.  I'd try to use dbase (append from...) or
> >foxpro to do this, whichever format you are planning to use.

> >Then I'd replace the TTable/tquery with either TDBF components or
> >advantage components (which work with Clipper or Fox tables, I think).

> >I'd prefer advantage for that reason.  Also it comes with advantage data
> >architect, which can create and manipulate the tables.  It is free for
> >local use and not that expensive for server deployment.

> >This would have the advantage of getting rid of the BDE (the uses clause
> >will need editing to get rid of dbtables or it will still look for the
> >BDE at start up).

> >The BDE won't use dbase iii indexes I think, so BDE is out.  Nor will it
> >work with Foxpro - read only.

> >How much work involved depends on how complex the app is.  If it was
> >mainly components dropped onto forms then Gexperts replace components
> >feature might do all the conversion for you.  If there was a lot of hand
> >written code to make it work then there is a lot of work.

> >All in all this isn't certain to be a trivial task.  It might be worth
> >looking at going over to ADO, assuming there is a foxpro ole-db
> >provider.  That way the next change should be a ten minute job <G>.  I
> >think that would be a better return on effort.