Really old version, really new user

[JackC]

Hello all,
I am trying to help out a friend that has and old Progress application running on DOS. I think the Progress version is 5.3. I am not familiar with this DBMS and I am not sure whether my friend has the development package or just a runtime for Progress installed in his c:\dlc directory. Here is a list of the executables in that directory:
Directory of C:\dlc

03/12/1991 10:08 PM 10,672 CHKCRC.EXE
03/12/1991 10:12 PM 54,636 CMPDB.EXE
03/12/1991 10:13 PM 43,776 DBF.EXE
03/12/1991 10:08 PM 11,968 DECOMP.EXE
03/12/1991 10:09 PM 14,254 PROBUILD.EXE
03/12/1991 10:11 PM 28,048 PRODB.EXE
03/12/1991 10:13 PM 27,008 PRODEL.EXE
03/12/1991 10:13 PM 16,592 PROLOG.EXE
03/12/1991 10:13 PM 13,728 QUOTER.EXE
03/18/2008 01:38 PM 5,947 RUNDOS.EXE
03/12/1991 10:08 PM 12,432 WHATMEM.EXE
03/12/1991 10:10 PM 160,224 _CPROGRS.EXE
03/12/1991 10:12 PM 122,384 _DBUTIL.EXE
03/12/1991 10:12 PM 182,576 _MPRSTWS.EXE
04/26/1989 06:00 PM 720,546 _PPROGRS.EXE
03/12/1991 10:12 PM 249,568 _PROGRES.EXE
02/15/1990 11:36 PM 312,944 _PROUTIL.EXE
03/12/1991 10:08 PM 196,672 _RFUTIL.EXE

What I need to do is dump all of the data from the database called DBRTK.DB (only a 4.5MB file) in the c:\rtk directory (folder)
He needs to get this data into a text file for importing into another application (delimited with "," would be a plus).
I've been searching the Web but can not find a solution for this old version
Any help or pointers would be appreciated!
Thanks in advance

 

[TomBascom]

If it isn't already set first set the DLC environment variable to point to the directory where Progress is installed.

Then try running:

_progres dbrtk

from a DOS command line. That should open up an "editor" session and put you in a position to enter commands. (If I recall correctly the v5 editor was "tram lines style" -- that is two solid lines extending across the screen with the cursor positioned between them.)

Then enter:

--------------------------------------------------------------------
for each TABLE no-lock:
  display TABLE.
end.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

(I'm showing the "tram lines" above.)

Substitute a real table name for TABLE and press F2 or Control-X to execute that code.

If it works then you have a development license and you are in position to dump your data the way that you want it (with a more sophisticated version of the above program).

It it does not work then you will, at least, have to make some compromises and you might, possibly, be out of luck.

 

[JackC]

Thank you Tom for the response to my post.
I did manage to open a Progress editor session and after browsing thru some of the source programs (.p suffix), I was able to determine some of the table names used in the rtkdb.db database. I entered your 3 line command and substituted the table name where you suggested and I did indeed get a page by page listing of the table contents. (F1 to run the code)
Based on your post, I believe the development license is installed.
So now I need to somehow get a list of all of the tables in the rtkdb.db and dump the data from each of them to text files that can be imported to Excel.
I found this article while searching the web, but I cannot get it to function.
http://www.smart-it-consulting.com/article.htm?node=89&page=8
Is there a simple way the table names and get the data to text files?
Thanks again

 

[TomBascom]

You're in luck!

The easiest thing to do would be to use the data dictionary to dump the data into space delimited quoted text files. Not quite what you want but very, very close. To do that start the dictionary by either typing "dict" and F2 at the tram lines or by using "_progres dbrtk -p dict.p" as your startup command. That will bring up a menu. Navigate to "admin', "dump data", "table contents". Select the tables you want to dump and off you go.

The program that you found is from a much later version of Progress (at least v7). It generates programs to do the dumps. I believe that v5 lacks the delimiter option to export and the ":U" stuff, which has to do with translations to foreign languages, would all need to be removed. But you could fiddle with it and possibly get somewhere.

If you really, really have to have comma-delimited output it is going to take some work.

 

[JackC]

THANK YOU!
Worked perfectly!!
Nice to know someone still has the "old" knowledge