Newbie layman Q: how to open and edit a BLB file

  • Thread starter Thread starter Anykindjob.com
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You've crossposted to *way* too many non-similar groups. Next time, pick a
group or two that are relevent and go that route. Compact Framework and XP
General are nowhere near similar.

For the compact framework, I have no idea what a BLB file is, so I'd say
open it with a FileStream and do what you wish.
 
I tried filext before I posted here. I am still at lost. The filext
results did not seem to tell me a software to edit a .BLB file.
 
I tried filext before I posted here. I am still at lost. The filext
results did not seem to tell me a software to edit a .BLB file.
Click to expand...

Anyone may and can call a file anything he/she wishes, provided the
name meets the requirements of the OS. One can change the name of
northwinds.mdb to northwinds.blb and open it in Access. One can set
the default open for ".blb" files to Access, or Notepad or whatever we
want. These associations were not set down my God on stone tablets.
They are entirely arbitrary, although there are strong conventions
that are followed in general.

We know from other posts that the ACT application uses the extension
BLB. This might be a place to start. But there are other applications
that separate their database files in data files, index files, and
blob files; the blob files are named with the ".blb" extension.
You might find some useful information by right clicking the file (in
Explorer) and examining its properties. But the only way to be sure
what might open the file is to research its history (who/what created
it) and to try various applications. Of course, many applications will
open the file. You probably want to find one that makes sense of
whatever is in the file.
Only you, who have the file can answer, "What can open it?"
I can make a png file of Brittney. I can name it Brittney.blb. The
greatest expert in the world can tell you it should open with ACT. But
he/she will be wrong. It will open with "NeedsHelp".
 
Lyle Fairfield said:
Anyone may and can call a file anything he/she wishes, provided the
name meets the requirements of the OS. One can change the name of
northwinds.mdb to northwinds.blb and open it in Access. One can set
the default open for ".blb" files to Access, or Notepad or whatever we
want. These associations were not set down my God on stone tablets.
They are entirely arbitrary, although there are strong conventions
that are followed in general.

We know from other posts that the ACT application uses the extension
BLB. This might be a place to start. But there are other applications
that separate their database files in data files, index files, and
blob files; the blob files are named with the ".blb" extension.
You might find some useful information by right clicking the file (in
Explorer) and examining its properties. But the only way to be sure
what might open the file is to research its history (who/what created
it) and to try various applications. Of course, many applications will
open the file. You probably want to find one that makes sense of
whatever is in the file.
Only you, who have the file can answer, "What can open it?"
I can make a png file of Brittney. I can name it Brittney.blb. The
greatest expert in the world can tell you it should open with ACT. But
he/she will be wrong. It will open with "NeedsHelp".
Click to expand...

What you say is true and FileAlyzer is a great program to find out
just what a file is
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/filealyzer/index.html
among other things it shows the header of the file in question (file
type)
 
And absolutely none of this has any relevence to the .NET Compact Framework.
Please trim this group from the To: list in future responses as we just
don't care.
 
And absolutely none of this has any relevence
to the .NET Compact Framework. Please trim
this group from the To: list in future responses
as we just don't care.
Click to expand...

It's not about Microsoft Access, either, Chris, but we try to help when we
can. Do you suppose that's a difference between the unmanaged and managed
code worlds?

And, er, you aren't even interested in Lyle's comments about Brittney?
<CHUCKLE> I'm a little surprised Lyle's interested -- she's not a redhead,
particularly today!

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP
 
Helping is fine, but we've definitely gone well past the point of any help
being offered. Not sure what the comment regarding managed and unmanaged is
about - I answer hundreds of questions a month covering both managed and
unmanaged.

And no, I'm actually not terribly interested in Brittney. He's got a valid
point that the extension has little to do with file content - and really the
OP asked a poor question here. Based on his choice of groups, we have no
idea if he wants an onject model for the CF to read ACT files, a desktop
library to get ACT data into Access, general opening it in XP or what. We
also don't know it's really ACT. The only real answer we can give at this
point is that he can use a file stream of some sort to open and read the
data. That is true is all cases. Interpreting that data is going to vary
depending on his intended use.
 
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