We have been asked to convert data from another system.
Unfortunately, the dollars amounts are stored in an internal format which we can not convert. We do not know what the original system was written in but it may have been Visual Basic.
Anyone have suggestions on how to convert the money?
What are the files called? (eg. money.dat)
AREV has a suite of functions which can be
used to convert binary data.
Use OSBREAD to inspect the file in question
SEQ(character) returns the decimal value of a one byte character
CHAR(number) returns the ASCII character value nominated
ICONV(string,'HEX')
OCONV(string,'HEX')
ICONV(string,'MX')
OCONV(string,'MX')
Enable various ASCII - Hex conversions which may be of use.
BITAND(NUMBER,NUMBER) enables you to strip bits from a one byte (8 bit) ASCII character
V118 may also be of limited use.
Other manipulations can be performed using MOD(number,divisor)
You will need to know what language the system is written in.
I have performed conversions into AREV from many languages,
including Dataflex (nasty) which holds integers in packed
decimal format.
Access (and some other languages) enable ASCII exports,
or exports to Lotus or Excel, which can then be used to
produce *.CSV files, which are fairly easy to convert
into AREV.
If you are no expert in such conversions, find someone
who knows both AREV and also the language your system
is written in. This will help somewhat.
Your AREV manual carries the details of the above commands.
Steve
If the data is in packed decimal format (used by main frames) it will difficult to extract it in ARev. Someone in Canada used to sell an Assembler/C routine that would read packed decimal data from BTRIEVE files but that was in the early 90's and it is problematical if the said person and routines can still be found.
Any info on the data file names and associated DLLs to the application would help to identify the data.