We are using the DBMAN program for our College Directory. We are planning on importing a database file created from Access, which will be dynamically updated through Object Access.

I see no potential problem with this, because our Access Programmer ensures that he will be able to take a tab delimited text file from Access and use a Visual Basic Script to put the text file into the appropriate format used in DBMAN.

Has anyone done this? If not, do you, Alex, or other users see potential problems with off-line editing of the database file.

The main reason we want to do this is to reduce the time of double entry of data.

Your thoughts and suggestions are greatly appreciated!

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Eliot Lee
Founder and Editor
Anthro TECH, L.L.C
http://www.anthrotech.com/
info@anthrotech.com
==========================
Coconino Community College
http://www.coco.cc.az.us/
Web Technology
Coordinator
elee@coco.cc.az.us

You can use the tab-delimited file directly in DBMan if you change the $db_delim setting in default.cfg to

$db_delim = "\t";

Or you can export the file from Access as a | delimited file and leave

$db_delim = '|';

in default.cfg.

The one thing I would suggest is that you change the data type for any fields that are listed as "Date/Time" in Access to text fields. Also, the "Yes/No" data type can cause a problem.


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JPD

Thank you very much for your advice. The Yes/No fields should not pose a problem since
we are not including things like "Popular" or "Validate" into the database. We are basically use straight text and numbers.

Thanks for the heads up on the Date/Time. We are not planning on adding any dynamic variables such as date and time.

Yes, I know about the text delimiter option. The problem is that when you export an Access file into a tab delimited flat text file, you get spaces between the | characters. For instance, I have tested exporting some other databases into tab delimited files with the | character and these are the typical results I get:

1 | My Name Golfing | Sports | elee@server.com

versus what structure of the DBMAN database file, which is the following:

1|My Name|Golfing|Sports|elee@server.com

(You will notice that there are spaces in the first example.)

I will try the \t option and see if it works. It would be nice to not touble our Access Programmer with having to write a VB script that would put the file into the proper format.

I'll check it out and see what happens.

Thanks again.



------------------
Eliot Lee
Founder and Editor
Anthro TECH, L.L.C
http://www.anthrotech.com/
info@anthrotech.com
==========================
Coconino Community College
http://www.coco.cc.az.us/
Web Technology
Coordinator
elee@coco.cc.az.us

[This message has been edited by Eliot (edited April 14, 1999).]

Well, I switch back and forth between Access and DBMan all the time with no problem. You just have to set that you want it delimited by "other" and put a | in the field.

However, from what I understand, the "\t" will work just as well. Be sure to use double quotes around it, though and not single quotes. (I just learned that the other day. )

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JPD