Re: dbase extension - Contributing Code

You'd be suprised how many people are actually using dbase as a common-file for transferring small chunks of data - this is why I needed to write the write code for our company. The dbase_open() and dbase_close() work in the 'buggy' version that reads memo data. I can add it to the current 'released' version if you think it should be there. You are absolutely correct about the fpt vs dbt. We required foxpro files, so I wrote it to handle those. In the README.MEMO file, it describes what is needed for handling dbt's, other than actually replaceing the "fpt" occurrences with "dbt" - I should come up with a nicer way of handling this - perhaps a constant with an option. Any thoughts here? So, what I think your saying is that even though I have the dbase_add_record() completed, before it's committed, I should get the read support completed? At this point, it could be committed. Thanks, Geoff ----- Original Message ----- From: "Vlad Krupin" <vlad@php.net> To: "Geoff" <gjukema@mvinc.net> Cc: <php-dev@lists.php.net> Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 10:28 AM Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] dbase extension - Contributing Code > this would be nice to have - I've written some code for that a while > back, but never got to finishing or committing it, so it's all abandoned > now. > > I briefly looked at your code and have a couple of comments. First, > writing to dbase is optional for most people (because it's not safe to > write from multiple instances of PHP running, and you are just asking > for trouble that way anyway) but reading from it is, indeed, useful to > retrieve some legacy data. > > for starters, it would be nice to have dbase_open(), dbase_close() (they > should probably check dbf_dhead.dbh_dbt - see dbf.h - this field already > gets filled when you do dbase_open() on a file). > > ...which brings me to another question - you are using .fpt extension > for memo files, right? wasn't it .dbt or something like that? I have a > nagging suspicion that .fpt is what FoxPro decided to use, and everyone > else uses something else. > > after that some read-only support would be nice (dbase_get_record() / > dbase_get_record_with_names() pair). > > after that's ready, we can add some write support, but when it's added > it would be nice to add changes to dbase_add_record() together with > changes to dbase_delete_record() and dbase_pack(). It's sad if we can > add but not delete. I'd rather have read-only access than a handicapped > write access. > > If you submit a unified diff against the HEAD branch to this list, > chances are someone will add it (as long as it does not obviously break > things for other people). > > Those are just a few thoughts... > > Vlad > -- > Vlad Krupin > Software Engineer > echospace.com