Lets preface this by saying I don't know anything about pick. We have a 3rd party application that interfaces with the database and I want to get around that.

Here's the ultimate goal: Dump everything from pick into a format that I can use to load into SQL or some other interim usable format.

We have a Raining Data D3 database and I'm unsure of the structure of the database. It is running on a RedHat box.

How can I:

1. Look around at the structure of the database?
2. Dump database into a flat file or something (preferably little at a time) to manipulate and see how the best way to export/convert that data so we can use it on an SQL database.

Thanks,
Mika

I feel your pain. This sounds like a UniVerse DB I'm trying to do an extract from. From the vendors website it looks like the have ODBC available. If that is the case and you have the software I would highly recommend going that route.

We don't have ODBC available so I have to go in and write the exports by hand in PickBasic. If you wind up having to do taht let me know and I can pass along some pointers.

Good Luck,

John

I agree with JODonnell regarding your predicament!

To find out the structure of a table, you should try to LIST the DICTionary of that table. If the application was done by thorough people, there should be an entry for each field, and possibly extra entries for "virtual" fields that are computed or otherwise derived from "real" fields.

To dump some of the file, something as easy as a COPY statement should do, but be advised that you will see strange things, such as variable length fields with a variable amount of subfields, dates coded as integers (not YYYYMMDD character strings) and other oddities.

Conversion programs in Pick Basic are relatively straightforward once you've gotten the hang of them. Typically you are hoping to generate a flat fixed-format text file.

Good luck!

Mika,

I've coded in multiple flavors of pick type databases since 1983. Currently most all of them have a capability of creating a flat file in any flavor you want (fixed length, tab delimited, comma delimited, etc.). The individuals that produce the Advanced Pick Database product also have a Reference Book (Red Book I think) with all of the different flavor Pick Verbs. If you know exactly what Pick type Database you are using that would be helpful.

As stated before there are also verbs that you can enter at TCl (Terminal Control Level) that will list the dictionary for the file. Dependent on the original design of the file and the field usage this could be helpful or really confusing. The ease or difficulty of converting a Pick type database come from the original design and how much the designer used Multi Values and Sub Values.

Actually, I've used some software from these people:
http://www.pixieware.com

Pretty easy to use and extract the data. Hard part is determining what the field types are and how to change data from those unknown fields to something more usable.

Thanks,
Mika