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ODBC / ADO access to Alpha dbf

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    ODBC / ADO access to Alpha dbf

    I have posted this same question a few times over the last two years, can't resolve it. I need an ODBC driver that I can use to read/write to Alpha dbf tables. I can't find the FoxPro 2.6 driver often quoted here as required, and the dozen other drivers I have tried return all sorts of errors.

    I am using a mass email system that needs to read/write to my Alpha dbf tables.

    Has anyone actually been able to do this? If so, can you tell me what ODBC driver you are using (FoxPro or 3rd party, etc.), and how to get it.
    Steve Wood
    See my profile on IADN


    #2
    Re: ODBC / ADO access to Alpha dbf

    Steve,

    I'm so glad you asked this question as I thought I was missing something obvious and simple. I look forward to seeing any replies as there are numerous charting software programmes that would be extremely useful and productive if someone could just come up with the appropriate driver.

    I look forward with interest.

    Robert

    Comment


      #3
      Re: ODBC / ADO access to Alpha dbf

      Steve:

      We have used the Visual Foxpro ODBC driver in conjunction with a VB application and A5/V5 for years to print insurance forms from our application. It's available on the Microsoft website.
      Finian

      Comment


        #4
        Re: ODBC / ADO access to Alpha dbf

        <speculation on>

        Perhaps the difficulty is the use of field data types in Alpha Five that aren't supported by the ODBC driver. I'd recommend testing the ODBC driver with Alpha Five tables that have only C, D and N data types... If successful, I'd test with other field data types... continuing until I discovered whether there might be some data types used in the current database that aren't directly supported.

        <speculation off>

        -- tom

        Comment


          #5
          Re: ODBC / ADO access to Alpha dbf

          Finian,

          Can you look at your driver in the ODBC Administrator and tell me the name of the driver, version, date. I've downloaded the MDAC 2.6 from Microsoft. The download details says it specifically does NOT include the Visual FoxPro ODBC Driver, and I cannot find it anywhere.
          Steve Wood
          See my profile on IADN

          Comment


            #6
            Re: ODBC / ADO access to Alpha dbf

            Under System DSN it just says "Visual Foxpro Database" and "Visual Foxpro Tables" oh, there it is, under drivers it says 6.01.8629.01

            Try this link

            http://msdn.microsoft.com/vfoxpro/do...c/default.aspx

            I'm pretty sure that this is the file I used when installing the driver on my laptop.
            Finian

            Comment


              #7
              Re: ODBC / ADO access to Alpha dbf

              I appreciate the time you took to find that. This is what I had downloaded, and is having problems. So I will do some experimentation and speak to the 3rd party company about their requirements.
              Steve Wood
              See my profile on IADN

              Comment


                #8
                Re: ODBC / ADO access to Alpha dbf

                Originally posted by Finian Lennon
                Under System DSN it just says "Visual Foxpro Database" and "Visual Foxpro Tables" oh, there it is, under drivers it says 6.01.8629.01

                Try this link

                http://msdn.microsoft.com/vfoxpro/do...c/default.aspx

                I'm pretty sure that this is the file I used when installing the driver on my laptop.
                I think that this is the same file.

                Dave
                --
                Bishop Business Solutions, Inc.
                293 Fendale Street
                Franklin Square, NY 11010

                516-483-7000
                http://www.bbsi.com

                "Helping your business work better through technology!"

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: ODBC / ADO access to Alpha dbf

                  Steve,

                  You mentioned that the link Finian showed was the one that you used yet just above you mentioned you installed MDAC 2.6. The VFP driver was not included with 2.6 but iti was included with 2.5. If you have ever installed 2.5 then you should have it. You would find VFPODBC.DLL in your Windows system directory. Finians link will let you only add the VFP driver if you do not find it.

                  I would also keep Toms suggestions in mind.

                  HTH

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: ODBC / ADO access to Alpha dbf

                    We use the driver to access A5 billing tables in order to create insurance forms. The fields we access are of type character, numeric, date and logical. The original VB programming was done a long time ago but I seem to recall that the programmer needed to do something funky when parsing the date fields. I don't have the source code available today but can take a look tomorrow if you're interested.
                    Finian

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Re: ODBC / ADO access to Alpha dbf

                      Have a look at this one.
                      It is an .exe file, so first rename it back from *.zip it is now, don't unzip!
                      Problems seem to concentrate around Alpha Five Memo Fields and the number of fields in a table.

                      Kind regards,

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Re: ODBC / ADO access to Alpha dbf

                        Originally posted by Finian Lennon
                        We use the driver to access A5 billing tables in order to create insurance forms. The fields we access are of type character, numeric, date and logical. The original VB programming was done a long time ago but I seem to recall that the programmer needed to do something funky when parsing the date fields. I don't have the source code available today but can take a look tomorrow if you're interested.
                        Hey,

                        I'm having problems with said date fields. Could you please check the "funky" action required to parse this? I know it's in VB, and I'm working with C#, but I'm sure I can find out what I need to do when looking at your source.

                        Thanks in advanced!

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Re: ODBC / ADO access to Alpha dbf

                          I'll try to dig it out when I get to the office.
                          Finian

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Re: ODBC / ADO access to Alpha dbf

                            I don't know if any of this will be helpful.

                            Date fields ... what I remembered was the difficulty we had in determining if a date field in A5 was populated or not. Eventually we arrived at the following VB code to perform the test. (The Alpha date field name is "Date")

                            If !Date <> "12:00:00 AM" And Trim(!Date) <> "" Then
                            FirstVisitDate = !Date
                            Else
                            FirstVisitDate = ""
                            End If

                            We use this test everywhere a date field is returned.

                            Long field names ... I think this is pretty standard. If the A5 field name is longer than 10 characters, only the first 10 characters of the field name are returned. If the first 10 characters are duplicated
                            for example A5 fields
                            ADA_Remarks
                            ADA_Remarks2
                            are returned as
                            ADA_Remark
                            ADA_Remar0

                            By the time we did the VB stuff we had stopped using memo fields so I can't help there.
                            Finian

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Re: ODBC / ADO access to Alpha dbf

                              Originally posted by Finian Lennon
                              I don't know if any of this will be helpful.

                              Date fields ... what I remembered was the difficulty we had in determining if a date field in A5 was populated or not. Eventually we arrived at the following VB code to perform the test. (The Alpha date field name is "Date")

                              If !Date <> "12:00:00 AM" And Trim(!Date) <> "" Then
                              FirstVisitDate = !Date
                              Else
                              FirstVisitDate = ""
                              End If

                              We use this test everywhere a date field is returned.

                              Long field names ... I think this is pretty standard. If the A5 field name is longer than 10 characters, only the first 10 characters of the field name are returned. If the first 10 characters are duplicated
                              for example A5 fields
                              ADA_Remarks
                              ADA_Remarks2
                              are returned as
                              ADA_Remark
                              ADA_Remar0

                              By the time we did the VB stuff we had stopped using memo fields so I can't help there.
                              I do not know if this is helpfull, since we only need to insert values into a date field. And when I try to insert, the ODBC driver reports that the format of the field doesnt match the value I'm trying to insert..

                              Do you have experience inserting dates into a database?

                              Comment

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