While looking into the header of dBase files, I discovered that dBase will only update the file date up to the year 2155 (1900+255). Has anyone else run into this and are there any plans on the drawing board to correct the problem? Is this problem limited only to the dBase file header? Is there a DBMS that does not have this limitation? It seems to me that the 3 byte date should be done away with and be moved to 4 bytes (Just a thought).
Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!
Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!
-
Congratulations Chriss Miller on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!
2155
- Thread starter BKtechie
- Start date
- Thread starter
- #3
I've been using the DBF file format since it's inception. I know that the OOP people don't like it but then they never had to worry about disk space or file retrieval speeds. In fact, I doubt that many of them even know what it is.
Fewer and fewer DBMS applications are using this versatile format and I suspect that in the not-to-distant future there won't be any applications making use of it. Those of us who continue to use it are fighting a losing battle. The move to wrap code and data into a persistant package will edge us old coders out to pasture.
Personally, I don't have a problem with using things like MS Access for my databse applications but what drives me nuts is seeing a simple data entry & retrieval system coupled with an empty database that's 20 megabytes is size! Gone are the days when you could put your dbase app AND data files on a floppy disc with room to spare!
So, I wouldn't worry too much about what's going to happen to your DBF files 50 years down the road. It's all going to change anyway!
OK, I'll get off my soap box... There's always a better way...
Fewer and fewer DBMS applications are using this versatile format and I suspect that in the not-to-distant future there won't be any applications making use of it. Those of us who continue to use it are fighting a losing battle. The move to wrap code and data into a persistant package will edge us old coders out to pasture.
Personally, I don't have a problem with using things like MS Access for my databse applications but what drives me nuts is seeing a simple data entry & retrieval system coupled with an empty database that's 20 megabytes is size! Gone are the days when you could put your dbase app AND data files on a floppy disc with room to spare!
So, I wouldn't worry too much about what's going to happen to your DBF files 50 years down the road. It's all going to change anyway!
OK, I'll get off my soap box... There's always a better way...
- Status