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DBVIEW(1)		       Database Management		       DBVIEW(1)

NAME
     dbview - View dBase III files

SYNOPSIS
     dbview [-b|--browse] [-d delim| --delimiter delim] [-D|--deleted] [-e|--de-
     scription]  [-h|--help]  [-i|--info]  [-o|--omit]	[-v|--version] [-r|--re-
     serve] [-t|--trim] dbfile

DESCRIPTION
     Dbview is a little tool that will display dBase III files.   You  can  also
     use it to convert your old .dbf files for further use with Unix.  It should
     also work with dBase IV files, but this is mostly untested.

     By default dbview displays the contents of a dBase III or IV database file.
     This  is  be  done  by displaying both the name of the field itself and its
     value.  At the end of every record a newline is appended.

OPTIONS
     If no option given dbview only displays the database in its  most	friendly
     way.

     --browse, -b
	    switches  into  browse  mode.  Using this mode no fieldnames will be
	    displayed, instead every record will displayed in one line	using  a
	    delimiter to separate fields.

     --delimiter, -d delimiter
	    The  default delimiter in browse mode is the colon sign ``:''.  This
	    parameter overrides it.  This can be useful especially if  you  plan
	    to examine the output with scripts.

     --deleted, -D
	    displays  deleted records as well as the delete state in each record
	    in the database.

     --description, -e
	    displays the field description of the database.

     --help, -h
	    displays a complete (or short) help screen.

     --info, -i
	    displays some (partially technical) information about  the	database
	    like number of records and length of each record.

     --omit, -o
	    omits  displaying  the  whole database.  Using this parameter can be
	    useful if you're only interested in the structure.

     --reserve, -r
	    Normally fieldnames are converted into a more friendly format.  They
	    are stored in capital letters, but that looks like	shouting.   This
	    parameter supresses the conversion.

     --trim, -t
	    When this option is specified, leading and trailing spaces are omit-
	    ted.  This might be useful when in browse mode.

     --version, -v
	    displays version and exits.

NOTES
     As  dBase	is  DOS, umlauts are stored using a different code table (namely
     ASCII) than most modern unices (namely ANSI).   If  you  encounter  such  a
     file,   I	 would	recommend  piping  the	output	through  recode(1)  with
     ibmpc:latin1 as it's argument.

     If you want to examine the output generated by the browse mode,  just  take
     cut(1)  and set its delimiter to the used delimiter or take awk(1) and con-
     tinue.

COPYRIGHT
     Dbview is free software. It is based on routines from unknown source that I
     found on nic.funet.fi in /pub/msdos/languages/c as dbase.c.  The file  con-
     tained the following notice:

     These functions are provided by Valour Software as a gift.

     I have modified and included this file and wrote a skeleton around it.  All
     together  provides  a powerful tool for dBase III and IV database manipula-
     tion under Unix.

     I mainly have written this program, because I've got  several  dbase  files
     containing  important information for me.	As I won't go running DOS every-
     time I need some of the stored information, I had to  find  a  viewer  that
     runs unter Unix, resp. Linux, but unfortunately didn't find one.  So it was
     my turn.

     This package as a whole is published under the GNU Public License, which is
     a great invention.

     It  wasn't  the intention to write a freaking viewer and reinvent the wheel
     again.  Instead dbview is intend  to  be  used  in  conjunction  with  your
     favourite unix text utilities like cut, recode and more.

     Martin Schulze
     Infodrom Oldenburg
     joey@infodrom.north.de

SEE ALSO
     recode(1), more(1), awk(1), cut(1).

Unix			       November 20th, 2006		       DBVIEW(1)

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<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=dbview&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.1.quarterly>

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