How to open DataFlex 2.3b .dat files

Question

I hope I can find help here. Does anyone know how I can open DataFlex 2.3b databse.dat files? The folder contains also other files as name.tag, name.k1...k9, name.def AND name.dat just as described in this link: http://www.decompile.com/dataflex/file_extensions.htm

I've figured out that k files are saving the indexes and the data is stored in.dat. But I couldn't find a way to extract the data from there since I can't get the data.

I've tried DataFlex Visual out but couldn't open the database. I was asked for MSSQL connection in this software.

I really hope I can find help. I just need to extract the data to a known format as CSV or SQL.

Answer 1

To open and use DataFlex databases you need a DataFlex product. Since you have the data you might also have the tools around it. If so you can use DFQUERY to open tables and print or export data.

If you don't have the DataFlex product installed you can download the lastest and greatest from https://www.dataaccess.com . This is 30+ years newer than the 2.3 product but is still capable to read and write data from and to the same files. DataFlex Studio does not require a MSSQL connection although we advice developers to go use a client server solution. And we are doing this for about 25 years now. Again there is no requirement.

You are right that the.K?? files are the indexes for the data. The.TAG files contain the column names.

Finally you could purchase an ODBC driver for DataFlex data but as the word purchase says it is not free. You can download an eval version allowing to read a limited set of rows from a table.

Answer 2

This a old version of Dataflex. You can search information on https://www.dataaccess.com .

You can try to use the next Dataflex version 3.1: ftp://dataaccess.com/pub/products/dataflex/archive/

If you can't open the table, I think that I can find the Dataflex 2.3 programs asking to a friend.

Good luk.