[6711] in RedHat Linux List
Re: A good database package?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ted Harding)
Fri Nov 29 16:51:11 1996
From: Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Ted Harding)
To: redhat-list@redhat.com (Red Hat List)
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 1996 21:48:16 +0000 (GMT)
Resent-From: redhat-list@redhat.com
Reply-To: redhat-list@redhat.com
Re: The following message.
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> Date: Fri, 29 Nov 1996 12:02:26 -0800 (PST)
> From: "David E. Fox" <dfox@belvdere.vip.best.com>
> To: redhat-list@redhat.com
> Subject: Re: A good database package?
>
> >
> > I can't seem to find anything that references DBASE
>
> Check out lasermoon (www.lasermoon.co.uk). Some time back they had
> something that was very very close to dbase III running on Linux. It
> may be a commercial product, but I had it on my machine and used it,
> but rather lightly.
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If you're referring to the dBMAN package (which answers your description
perfectly), I would advise caution. It IS commercial, and is produced by
VersaSoft.
The version I bought (admittedly nearly two years ago) has several bugs,
some of them nearly fatal. In particular, it has a "trip-wire" at 105
records (if I remember right, 100+, anyway) which, for instance,
a) causes "sort" to lose all records beyond the tripwire;
b) fails to save records added with "append from" beyond the tripwire
(it looks as if they've gone in but when you re-open the DB they're not
there)
c) The only way to safely amend the db is to make one change and
IMMEDIATELY save, and then quit dBMAN without further operations.
Then re-start dBMAN for further work.
d) etc.
e) printing is also a bugbear: you can only print once per session!
There are several other problems as well, most of which I could work
round or live with; but the above not.
Were it not for these problems it would have been a nice package to use:
it has several extensions to dBASE-III, some of which go even beyond
dBASE-IV, allowing good db work (provided you're not changing anything).
I expect I still have a compendium of the problems which I discussed at
length with LaserMoon, and others, at the time, if anyone is interested.
I had a mail from one user who got it for Linux because he had, way back,
used it on the Atari, which apparently was the machine dBMAN was created
for in the first place. Interesting!
Maybe these things have been put right now, but frankly I'm not going to
make a big effort/expenditure to find out. However, a demo version can be
found on some CD-ROMs (for instance, I find it on the August 1995 Linux
Developer's Resource Disk #3, ./demos/verasoft/*), if you are interested
in seeing how it works.
Ted. (Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk)
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