Question

How to Recover Btrieve database without FILE.DDF, FIELD.DDF and INDEX.DDF, on Pervasive SQL?

Asked by: techprocess

We have one system which uses Btrieve database. The system is unusable and has .BTR files and some other DDF files but does not have FILE.DDF, FIELD.DDF and INDEX.DDF. following is the list of available .DDF files.

091192.  DDF
BANK507.DDF
BANKDNR.DDF
BANKMSTR.DDF
BOMBAY.DDF
DNROAD.DDF
ISDLINES.DDF
LASER.DDF
NEWLINES.DDF
SAV.DDF
STC.DDF
XFERTEST.DDF

When I use Pervasive SQL to create new database with above DDFs it fails as I do not have FILE.DDF, FIELD.DDF and INDEX.DDF files. Is it possible to recover whole database by, some means, using above list of DDFs and without FILE.DDF, FIELD.DDF and INDEX.DDF files?

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Asked On
2009-01-13 at 22:04:33ID24050107
Tags

Btrieve

Topics

4GL Databases

,

Databases Miscellaneous

Participating Experts
1
Points
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Comments
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Answers

 

by: techprocessPosted on 2009-01-14 at 03:03:36ID: 23371476

Is there any remedy using BTRIEVE.EXE or BREQUEST.EXE?

 

by: BillBachPosted on 2009-01-14 at 05:53:46ID: 23372543

Btrieve developers could use whatever extension they wanted.  These DDF files could also be Btrieve files, but they are not "THE" DDF files that you need for easy SQL-level access.  Try a BUTIL -RECOVER on them as well and see if they contain viable data or not.  They could also be some internal format the developer designed, too, or even just text files.

Obviously, you don't have the data dictionaries for access via SQL, so the original problem still remains -- you'll need to either build them or extract the data from the UNF files.

 

by: techprocessPosted on 2009-01-14 at 21:23:44ID: 23380780

Thanks for the comment !! Could you please elaborate on which UNF files I can use to extract the data?

 

by: BillBachPosted on 2009-01-15 at 04:59:54ID: 23382844


Your other post indicated that you could use BUTIL to extraxt data.
 The resulting file is called a UNF file.
Just do the same thing on these files with a command like:
  BUTIL -RECOVER LASER.DDF LASER.UNF

 

by: techprocessPosted on 2009-01-15 at 05:47:56ID: 23383165

I tried but got following error.......

C:\StanC\BMPC\SYSRES>butil -recover BANKMSTR.DDF BANKMSTR.UNF

Btrieve Maintenance Utility 10.10.125.000
Copyright (C) Pervasive Software Inc. 2008
All Rights Reserved.


BUTIL-71: BUTIL has recovered 0 records so far.

BUTIL-71: BUTIL has recovered 0 records so far.

BUTIL-14: The file that caused the error is BANKMSTR.DDF.
BUTIL-100: MicroKernel error = 30. The file specified is not a MicroKernel file.

BUTIL-9: The command did not complete due to an unrecoverable error.

 

by: BillBachPosted on 2009-01-15 at 05:52:52ID: 23383216

It was worth a try.  Obviously, these are not Btrieve files.  

Can you view them with Notepad, or with a hex editor like Hex Workshop?

 

by: techprocessPosted on 2009-01-15 at 20:50:33ID: 23390319

Yes, I can view them with Text editor like notepad or editplus. These files are in simple text format, not in Binary or Hex. here are the contents of BANKMASTER.DDF, one of the DDF file.

*
*    Data Descriptor File for Bankmaster PC
*    --------------------------------------
*
*
MESSAGE   *************************************************
MESSAGE   *                                               *
MESSAGE   *   REL V DDF : \BMPC\SYSRES\BANKSMTR.DDF       *
MESSAGE   *                                               *
MESSAGE   *   NATIVE DATA NO LONGER ENABLED               *
MESSAGE   *                                               *
MESSAGE   *************************************************
*
*
*    NATIVE_DATA ENABLED
*
*
*    Define standard prefixes
*    ------------------------
*
*
*
PREFIX IAM \BMPC\DATA
PREFIX REL \BMPC\DATA
PREFIX SEQ \BMPC\DATA
PREFIX RAW \BMPC\PROGRAMS
*
*
*

Also I have attached the file.
For the purpose of attaching file I have appended ".txt" extension. Original name of file is "BANKMASTER.DDF".


  • BANKMSTR.DDF.txt
    • 36 KB

    One of the DDF file I have, for which I am getting error mentioned earlier.

 

by: BillBachPosted on 2009-01-16 at 05:38:35ID: 23392587

Looks like thiese files define the database files, and perhaps the indices in each table, but they do not define the dictionary in the traditional sense -- field names and data types.  Unfortunately, there just isn't enough info here to discern the data structures, unless another file has more detailed lists of info.

It might be possible to create real DDF's to allow SQL/ODBC access, but the effort would be substantial for a database of this size.  If the application name is BankMaster, perhaps you'd do better searching for other BankMaster users who may have real DDF's, or who have spent time building them.  Offer to pay them for the info, if you have to.

Creating DDF's on your own would be a very expensive proposition for such a large system.  See www.goldstarsoftware.coim/press.asp for the white paper on ODBC Access to Btrieve files to get a better idea of what it takes.  Without source code availability, I'd expect a cost of $20000+ for a project of this magnitude.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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