Any way to "discover" a structure?

[George Tiller]

If it makes any difference, the 4D version is v2003.



George Tiller
911 East A Street
Brunswick, Maryland 21716
301-834-8170

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[Arnaud de Montard]

Le 14 août 08 à 16:55, George Tiller a écrit :

> If it makes any difference, the 4D version is v2003.

You do not say if struture is compiled or not, and if it can be opened  
with insider.

You can do this with a "universal 4D opener", I mean a structure  
having many tables, with many fields, all text type. I did this, if  
you want it. But most of the job is to determine fields type after,  
and for pictures and blobs, good luck... It's a great help if compiled  
structure gives access to direct use mode, and/or to 4D editors such  
as Query, Sort, QR, Labels, 4D Write models...

Another (quite hack, but very fast) solution, if you have a compiled  
structure, is to change compiled signature in interpreted one, and  
then open with insider: it just needs developer password.

--
Arnaud de Montard



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[George Tiller]

Thanks Cuuck, I'm staring on this now...


On 8/14/08 11:21 AM, cjmiller@... wrote:

>I think once you have done this, you can open with either sanity check  
>or data check do not remember which and it will advise differences  
>between your structure and data
>
>Regards
>
>Chuck
>On Aug 14, 2008, at 11:03 AM, Koen Van Hooreweghe wrote:
>
>>
>> You should be able to open the datafile with whatever structure you  
>> have (this has changed in v11!). The data you'll get won't make much  
>> sense though.
>> I haven't tried myself, but if you create a structure with a bunch  
>> of tables each having a bunch of text fields, you should be able to  
>> see most of the data (blob and picture fields will fail). Because  
>> each record has a micro structure (copy of the table structure the  
>> record belongs to) inside and 4D does some data conversion when a  
>> record is read with a different structure file.

George Tiller
911 East A Street
Brunswick, Maryland 21716
301-834-8170

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[George Tiller]

Actually, _nothing_ will successfully open the structure file.

I'm working with a newly-created structure and DataCheck to get something
that is close enough to extract the data. DataCheck is telling me where
my new structure doesn't match the data file.

Thanks for the suggestion!


On 8/14/08 11:29 AM, arnaud@... wrote:

>Le 14 août 08 à 16:55, George Tiller a écrit :
>
>> If it makes any difference, the 4D version is v2003.
>
>You do not say if struture is compiled or not, and if it can be opened
>with insider.
>
>You can do this with a "universal 4D opener", I mean a structure
>having many tables, with many fields, all text type. I did this, if
>you want it. But most of the job is to determine fields type after,
>and for pictures and blobs, good luck... It's a great help if compiled
>structure gives access to direct use mode, and/or to 4D editors such
>as Query, Sort, QR, Labels, 4D Write models...
>
>Another (quite hack, but very fast) solution, if you have a compiled
>structure, is to change compiled signature in interpreted one, and
>then open with insider: it just needs developer password.

George Tiller
911 East A Street
Brunswick, Maryland 21716
301-834-8170

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[George Tiller]

Thanks, Koen, I'm getting started on this now, and it looks like I'll be
able to get at the data this way.


On 8/14/08 11:03 AM, bvbaCompass@... wrote:

>You should be able to open the datafile with whatever structure you  
>have (this has changed in v11!). The data you'll get won't make much  
>sense though.
>I haven't tried myself, but if you create a structure with a bunch of  
>tables each having a bunch of text fields, you should be able to see  
>most of the data (blob and picture fields will fail). Because each  
>record has a micro structure (copy of the table structure the record  
>belongs to) inside and 4D does some data conversion when a record is  
>read with a different structure file.
>
>HTH
>Koen
>
>Op 14-aug-08, om 16:53 heeft George Tiller het volgende geschreven:
>
>> I can't really tell what condition the 82MB data file is in, since I
>> don't have a structure that can open it.
>>
>> Is there any way to "discover" the structure of a 4D data file so  
>> that I
>> could develop a structure that will read it and extract the data  
>> for the
>> company?

George Tiller
911 East A Street
Brunswick, Maryland 21716
301-834-8170

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