Reading Data File, Need Hex Values

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ron
  • Start date Start date
R

Ron

I need a way to read the hex values of an old DBase3 data file.

Can anyone give me some info regarding how to grab hex values out of a file?
Not sure exactly how to do this.

Thanks for your help.
 
Ron said:
I need a way to read the hex values of an old DBase3 data file.

Can anyone give me some info regarding how to grab hex values
out of a file?
Click to expand...

What *exactly* do you mean by "the hex values"? I would expect a
database such as DBase3 to have a fairly complicated format... do you
have information about it?
 
I need to view/modify the hex code of the file. DBase3 isn't very
complicated, I have a map of the byte sequences and what they mean, I just
need to get at the numbers so I can parse it and make a few changes.

Here is a the DBase3 key:

Byte Description
0 03h, version number
1-3 Last update, YY, MM, DD
4-7 number of records, 32 bit integer
8-9 length of the header structure, 16 bit integer
10-11 length of a record, 16 bit integer
12-31 reserved
32-N Field Descriptors
This is an array of 32-byte descriptors, one for each field in the
record, up to 128 fields.
Byte Description
0-10 Field Name (padded with nul)
11 Field Type
C Character
N Numeric (-.0123456789)
L Logical (YyNnTtFf) (? if not initialized)
D Date (YYYYMMDD)
M memo
12-15 reserved
16 Field Length
17-31 reserved
N+1 0Dh field terminator


So if anyone can tell me how to open a file and read the hex values therein
I would be very appreciative.

Thanks for your input,

Ron
 
Ron said:
I need to view/modify the hex code of the file. DBase3 isn't very
complicated, I have a map of the byte sequences and what they mean, I just
need to get at the numbers so I can parse it and make a few changes.
Click to expand...

In that case I suggest you just use a BinaryReader - or even just a
Stream, where you can read the bytes directly.
 
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