Btrieve

- Prior to starting the application, if the environment variable SET BTRPARMSCHK=Y is specified, the status 1015 is returned.

- Isolation of errors that are caused by passing invalid pointers to Btrieve is done by using this environment variable.

- Once this variable is set, Btrieve performs the validation on pointer parameters that are passed in to READ/WRITE access on certain ranges.

- Btrieve validates position block pointer on the range of 128 bytes, length pointer validates on two bytes and data buffer is validated on 255 bytes for key buffer

-Once a file is opened by Btrieve, no other user / application can open it until Btrieve closes that file.

-The operating system's 'copy' command will not work

-One can back up the Btrieve file using BUTIL operations.

-BUTIL operations uses CLONE for creation of a backup file.

-Followed by CLONE, COPY command is used to backup the records from one file to backup file.

-Every Btrieve file and DDf has a owner of their creation.

-Owner name can be used to read only access.

-SET OWNER = command is used before utilizing SELECT statement.

-.lck files are lock files and can not read them directly.

-.btr files are DDF files.

-The conversion can be made by using ODBC DSN that points to data and utilizes SSIS or DTS to export the data from.

-Btrieve Commander is a file viewer.

-The primary view is named as Main View that lists the records one per line. A cursor vertical bar indicates the current record.

-Record View : It shows the records in the Main view and is limited

-Calculate Totals : This views allows to compute numeric fields of current record

-Import and Export of Records : The records in Btrieve can be imported from or exported to a Comma Separated Value files or the raw format that is utilized by the BUTIL’s save function.

- Rebuilding Btrieve files is possible using BREBUILD, if they have not extended across a volume.

- CONVERT4 should be used after the files have been extended, for the purpose of translating Btrieve v3.x files to v4.x format

- Later we can run BREBUILD.

- Btireve v4.x and v5.x files can also be rebuild using BREBUILD.

To ensure the data retrieval correctly by Btrieve:

- Use the latest version of NetWare Shell - IPX v3.10, NETX v3.22 or NETX v3.26

- Make sure that latest BREQUEST.EXE is running

- Verify the Btrieve data file's page size

- If the pages are not evenly divisible into 4k, NetWare mishandles the pages

- Use only the pages of sizes 512k, 1024k, 2048k, or 4096k.

- The situation would be resolved by using NetWare Patch ASNCROFX.NLM

The process is as follows:

- Run the BUTIL NLM version 6.x from the file server, which displays the version of file format after executing a STAT call.

- No client BUTIL program is available to display this status

- Another way is to check the version format of a Btrieve file by using DOS DEBUG utility

- Type debug-d at DOS prompt.

- The initial two bytes of the FCR will be set to FC when the file is stored in 6.x format.

- Otherwise the bytes will be set to 0x00.

The .DDF file can be obtained in two ways;

- The vendor of the product should be able to provide .DDF along with the software.

- Or, use Xtrieve PLUS,XQL or NetWare SQL for creating the .DDF file.

- Brequest will not properly function in multiple private DOS boxes. The system will halt.

- Trap D occurs when Btrieve calls are made.