Hey everyone.

Two questions:

1. Is the bde the only way to get access to a dbase file?

2. Once we have the dbase file open how do I get to know the files metadata?



--
JMAC out

Correction

** You can use Advantage database

John MacDonald wrote:

>Hey everyone.
>
>Two questions:
>
>1. Is the bde the only way to get access to a dbase file?
>
>2. Once we have the dbase file open how do I get to know the files
>metadata?

You use Advantage database (http://devzone.advantagedatabase.com). It
is supported by AnyDac/FireDac (if you have a more recent Delphi). ADS
has an API to query the metadata.. We have been using ADS for the last
10 years, it works really well.

> {quote:title=John MacDonald wrote:}{quote}
> Hey everyone.
> 
> Two questions:
> 
> 1. Is the bde the only way to get access to a dbase file?
> 
> 2. Once we have the dbase file open how do I get to know the files metadata?
> 
> 
> 
> --
> JMAC out


I just saw this post and I'd like to add that I used Halcyon from www.grifsolu.com for many years.   It is a component for Delphi that provides direct access to dBase files (Clipper or Foxpro flavor).  I did this to avoid the deployment issues of the BDE. The site still seems to be up but the user forum is gone and the latest updates were only up thru Delphi XE.  It looks like the product might still be for sale but I could be wrong.  The product always worked well for me and I combined it with TXQuery (n
o longer being marketed or supported) to add SQL access to the tables.  I still have these components installed in my older Delphi versions.  They work fine in Windows 7 as well as older versions.

To work with Dbase files, I always used Foxpro 5 to directly access and maintain the data, structures and indexes outside of the application.  This is as close to the 'metadata' as you are going to get, I believe.  Foxpro can still be obtained from various sources (Ebay, Amazon) but is no longer supported by Microsoft much to the chagrin of its many users.

If you have any other questions, I would be glad to assist.

Mark J. Wallin

Edited by: Mark Wallin on Nov 7, 2014 2:23 PM

You may also want to look at http://www.grafxsoft.com/
They market CA-Visual Objects (taken over from CA) and Vulcan.NET - a descendent of Clipper and also compatible with Visual Objects.  Both have access to all forms of dBase tables.