Problem with DBASE III PLUS - Not a dbase database

[thomman]

We are using a clipper application which runs on a Novell 4.2 network and using around 350 DBF files.Until a few days back we could open these files in DBASE III PLUS as well.Now when we try to open some of the files we get a message "Not a dbase database".Does anybody know what causes this problem? Is there any solution?We have to open these files because we create our own reports from this application.:-(

 

[GEMS]

Hi Thomman,
I would direct you to the thread290-44654 - "Not a DBAse database error" on this forum. The most valuable parts are J Scannell's replies on Jan 11 & 14 and MiggyD's extension on Jan16. Hope this helps GEMS

 

[MiggyD]

If the above link doesn't work properly try:

"tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?sqid=48344&spid=290&page=1&nx=1&CFID=10894835&CFTOKEN=2139859

 

[insi10]

This is probably a bit late, but I read through these posts and didn't notice any reference to non-date reasons for getting this "not a dBase database" message in dBase III. I get it all the time for a quite different reason: attempting to use dBase III to read a dBase 5 dbf file. A software vendor of ours used to export its data to dBase III, but changed to 5, leaving us having to solve this problem on our own.

If you have this problem, a simple solution is to create a dbase III shell database and directly import the data from the dbase 5 database. dbase III will import everything in like-named fields. There appears to be no need to go through the intermediary step of a delimited text file for this problem.