ODBC access to Macola 6.2 HELP!

[vmon]

I have been tossed into an environment that is using Macola 6.2 and I have never worked with it or btrieve. Can someone tell me how to get customer order data into an MS Access 2000 database for reporting purposes? I would like to link to the data directly if possible using an ODBC driver.

Are there any that come with the software?

Are there any free drivers?

I can export and import but that is messy and not stable.

Thanks,
vmon

 

[Rob7]

vmon,
First I would ask why the organization is still using the 6.2 version. This is an unsupported version, and Macola (Exact) is moving rapidly away from Btrieve to MS SQL. If there are any questions I can answer in that vein, please let me know.

Now as far as connetion to the database, I do not know if there are any free drivers. You will proabably have to use an off the shelf driver for Btrieve (whichever version you happen to have). I used the one from Merant. You can order this direcly from them. If you are using a newer version of Btrieve, the ODBC driver that comes with it is not bad. The version of Pervasive you would need to be on is P.SQL 2000. But if you are on Pervasive 7 or even earlier versions, I would recommend the Merant driver.

A word of caution: If you do get connection to the Btrieve database through Access, DO NOT choose to LINK! Choose to IMPORT. If you link, there is the possiblility of unintentional writeback to the Btrieve data and the Btrieve data will become corrupted.

Let me know if I can be of more assitance.

Rob

 

[vbajock]

If you are an experienced programmer, obtain the Active X Control sold by Classic Software and you will get speed and stability especially in old DOS versions of Btrieve, and be able to use it no matter what the Btrieve version. Otherwise, I can't give you a good answer on ODBC without knowing what version of Btrieve you are on. I will guess you are probably using ver 6.15, because if your client is too cheap to upgrade from 6.2 he is probably too cheap to upgrade Btrieve to anything higher than the last version for DOS. Get paid in advance.

In general, if you have to use ODBC, Macola supplies the native Pervasive driver for Btrieve ver 6.15. The driver is slow, but you won't have any data corruption problems.

The are a whole bunch of other ODBC drivers for Btrieve for sale. Type ODBC Driver Btrieve into Goggle and you will see a million. Merant is the most popular. Nobody gives them way for free.

 

[abaldwin]

You can do the following as well.

Purchase the workstation engine for P.SQL 2000 and install it with the latest service packs.

You can then create an ODBC connection to the Macola 6.2 database.

In Access under file/get external data you can either link or import the data.

Andy

 

[MacolaHelp]

vmon: be sure you have the ddfs for v6.2 as well. I think they are routinely installed, but if you don't have them, I or someone out here can get them to you.

 

[vmon]

I can access the data now! The drivers work well.

I am having a problem with the srrtgfil.btr file. It is the routing file. The file layout (ddf) apperently does not match the data. The data in some columns in the first 10 or so columns is not correct. Any suggestions?

vmon

 

[vbajock]

Which drivers did you end up using?

 

[MacolaHelp]

If your client is 6.2 Macola, maybe you should call Peak to see if they can help you with the fact that the ddfs do not seem to match what you think they should or the data you are importing/linking to. Otherwise, it would be a research project. I could probably help you figure it out, but haven't tried to use odbc access on the standard routing files in 6.2. Can't imagine it's that difficult, tho. Let me know if I can help. Peak can be reached through

http://www.peakdata.com.

They are the ones that wrote 6.2 & then macola purchased from them or distributed under their umbrella as a "macola" solution.

 

[vmon]

I am using Pervasive's ODBC driver. It is working fine on my laptop except for one files layout. I am getting an error tryinh to get at data over the network but it should be worked out soon.

vmon