Password Recovery Clarion .dat files

[hdspringer]

We have an application that extracts data from .dat files using TOPSCAN and loads the data into a warehouse. The programmer responsible for that application got...upset and changed the owner password for those files and then left. Obviously we now have a problem. We have about three years of history in those files that I am afraid we cannot recover. Our backup cycle is 14 days and we only extract data once a month. So you can see the situation. Is there a utility to reset/recover those passwords for someone with full administrator access to the system? The server base is W2K. We did get the passwords straight for the TPS files.

 

[JShankar]

TOPSCAN works only with Topspeed files (*.TPS) - When you try to open a Clarion DAT file, it asks for a password because it cannot understand the header format. So maybe there is no password at all. You can open Clarion DAT files from the Database Browser within the Clarion Development Environment OR using an DOS utility called CSCN.exe (which was part of Clarion 2.1) OR other 3rd party tools. There is a freeware utility written in Clarion called XSCAN written by Vadim Berman. You could check that out. The website is

http://www.power10.co.il/en

and the contact e-mails are info@

http://www.power10.co.il

and support@

http://www.power10.co.il.

 

[hdspringer]

Thank you. I mistated my problem. I need a utility to extract data from the .dat and .tps files and load into a format that can be imported into the data mine. The data files aren't protected, it is the extraction code that was protected. Hopefully I can find something and not have to write extractors all over again.

 

[JShankar]

TOPSCAN has an Export option (File --> Export) which allows you to export TPS files into a Text file (ASCII). Clarion 2.1 has a CCVT.exe which allows you to convert from Clarion to dBASE or Text file. XSCAN also has an option to copy data records between files which can be used to convert to a Text file. The only problem is that XSCAN expects the File Definition in the same format as used in Clarion programs - so you will have to create those definitions.

If you do program in Clarion, you could create a Export Program quite easily with or without the help of 3rd party products like the Import/Export template from Sterling Data.

If you do not have Clarion 2.1 and want the CSCN & CCVT utility programs, reply with your e-mail address and I shall mail it to you.