Data Manager for Btrieve and Pervasive SQL Enterprise 4.x Quick Start Guide. To obtain a userid and key you must send an email to mngrdemo@classicsoftware.com. Include Name, Company name, address and phone number. In reply you will be given a User Name and Key to activate the demo software. The best place to start in using the program is the help file. Help is context sensitive and can be activated by pressing the F1 key on any screen or dialog. Basically the program is divided into two main parts; Standard and Data Management. These very closely follow the features of the Standard and Enterprise versions as it is organized in the help file. The Data Management is accessed via the Tools/Data management from the file menu. The Data Management is used to create, save and execute the export/import configurations supported in the Enterprise version. With the Exception of Access and Excel most of the Database formats are supported in the Data Management portion of the Data Manager. The next place to look for information is the readme file. This has some specific information for applications like Peachtree, Lytec and DacEasy. The Standard version only exports/imports to and from text formats. The default export is setup with specific performace settings. One of these is the Export Speed, which can be put in an accellerated mode and for SQL Server a fast load. This can be set on the File\Export Dialog from main program and the Data Management forms performance options dialog. On the Data Management form under View\Performance Options menu is the performance options dialog. This is the dialog for modifying many performance settings. These settings modify performance for both the read and write side and can dramatically change the performance. Some settings like the Export Speed SQL Server Fast Load setting can boost performance of an export by a factor of 100X or more. Others can give a boost of 3x or more. The cumulative effects can be quite dramatic. In the interest of supporting all types of Pervasive and Btrieve databases as well as error checking and diagnostics we have chosen some lower common denominator settings. For most situations these are more than adequate. These settings are documented in the help file (F1). You may also direct questions to support@classicsoftware.com Exporting Data You can export directly to in several ways. For one you can easily do this manually right from the main part of the program. You can also create export configurations, save them and execute them from within the program, command line, or included ActiveX. So you can automate the process and easily incorporate it into scheduling programs (even task manager) or your own custom application. Import is similar. NOTE: The following directions assume you have a ddf file. If you do not have a DDF file then See the section "Reverse engineering a DDF Definition from a data file" at the end of this document. Classic Software, Inc. also provides DDF creation services. Quick export directions: 1) Under the file menu select open. Navigate to the directory with the file.ddf and select it. 2) This will bring up an explorer type view. Select a table and then under file select export. 3) Select database as the target. By default Access will be selected. Press Ok. Or To configure an export. 1) Select Tools/Data management from the menu. This will bring up the export/import configuration dialog. 2) From the file menu on this dialog select "Open Dictionary". Navigate to the same DDF. 3) This will load the grid up for a tab delimited export of all of the tables. You can change the tables that are selected for export\import by checking them in the grid or use the all in and all out buttons on the form. You can edit the grid directly but the best way is the Global Change Form or the Configuration Wizard found under this dialogs tools menu. The Global Change for does not reflect any current settings of the grid but is a tool for changing the values for columns for every row (table) of the configuration grid that is selected. For example to export to Microsoft Access you just need to set the Database, Operation and Output location. Database to Access, Operation to "Create if not exist" and Output location to the name of the .mdb. You change a column by setting the value and then checking the box next to it. You can set up an entire database for export in a couple of minutes. The configuration wizard is more intuitive to use. Just select a table and then the configuration wizard under the tools menu. The first page deals with what data you want to get out of the Btrieve table and where it is going. In this case you just set the Target to Access and select Next. the next form deals with the Access database. What is the name of the .mdb and whther and how you will create it (Operation). You can use this form to create the database and test out connecting to it. By default settings the Data Manager will do everything for you from creating the database, creating the tables, and migrating the data. Once you have created an export configuration save it. Under file select Save As. You can select either an encrypted or plain text file. Once you save an export configuration you can always come back where you left off. If you select the Operation tab you can move to a form to execute the configuration. Just select the Execute button. A staus windows provides detailed status of the operation. Also a file with a default name of btrvmngr.log will be created for notification and error messages as well. You can also execute it via a command line interface. The minimum argument is the name of the configuration file. There is also an included ActiveX control. Among other optional (property) settings the name of the configuration file is a property. There is lots of online help on this. Just select F1 from any screen. Search for Enterprise, Command line interface or ActiveX. Reverse engineering a DDF Definition from a data file. If you do not have a DDF file the Data Manager can be used to reverse engineer one. NOTE: Classic Software has a special version of the Data Manager (Universal) that includes a DDF Sniffer. It will scan a file and pattern match for standard and nonstandard DDF data types. It has many features for finding data types including fuzzy logic, data ranges, etc. We charge for this service. Contact us for more details. However, the Data Manager Enterprise will reverse engineer quite a bit depending on the Data File. And it can also be used to manually do the rest. When you open a file (as a data file) it will generate a starting DDF. You can also do the same thing by selecting "New Table From File" under the edit menu. In this case it will add a new table definition to an existing DDF. The Data Manager will generate all of the file.ddf and index.ddf data for the data file and some or all of the field.ddf data. Btrieve files do not contain any field information. That is why you need a DDF. Consequently, the Data Manager will generate fields with names like Field000, Field001, Field002, etc... Some sections of the record will be unknown. In this case the Data Manager generates a placeholder field with names like Unknown000, Unknown001, Unknown002, etc... The Unknown sections are defined as strings. This does not mean they contain String Data. It is just a placeholder field. To see what is in these fields you need to do something else. The fields will contain either binary or string data. The first thing you should do to see this data as alphanumeric. 1) In the Tree view control select the table and click on the '+" sign to expand the node. 2) Double click the Fields subnode (not Fields tab with grid). This will bring up a form allowing selection of fields to display/export and how they should be viewed. 3) Using the mouse select the unknown fields in the list and using the radio buttons at the bottom change the View as to Alphanumeric. Do this in turn for each Unknown Field. 4) Select Ok to exit the form. 5) Select the Data tab on the grid to view the Data. a) Alphanumeric characters are displayed as the character. b) Binary zeors are displayed as a period ".". c) Everything else is displayed as a question mark "?" 6) Now export the data as a Fixed format text file. a) Under file select Export. b) On the export form change the text format from "Tab" to "Fixed". c) Select Ok. The export will begin. You do not have to export all of it. You can cancel when it is part way done. d) Use an editor to open the file. Fixed format will put the data in the file with all of the fields at fixed offsets. You get a clean grid like format. For the unknown fields you can easily see where all of the text data is as well as where are of the binary data is. The binary data will be grouped into sets of question marks "?". If you have an editor that gives a column position for a cursor position then you can use this to determine the offsets to break out the Unknown fields into one of more fields. You can do the same thing and display the data as Hex of BCD as well. The Field Tab grid is fully editable. You can add in new fields by adding them on the end or using I to insert a field at any row. Delete a field with d. You can directly change the offset and length fields as well as type, decimal, etc. You can test them out by tabbing over to the Data view. You can save your DDF at any time by selecting Save from the file menu. This will capture any work in progress. 7) If you are using the demo there are a couple of limitations regarding this. a) The will only export the first 10 records. b) The demo will not let you save a DDF. Although you can make changes within the program. The demo also has other significant limitations. See the readme and help file. The help file is pretty comprehensive as far as operations of the program. Exporting your Data to SQL Server, etc. The program has two major parts. The standard part is when you first open the program. This will let you create DDF files, browse and edit data, and do single table exports to text, Access tables and Excel. The other major part of the program is found under Tools/Data Management. This is the part that allows you to do configurable data export/import. Only in this part of the program can you set up exports to SQL Server and databases other than Access and Excel. See the help file for details. We also have several examples on our website.