Hi,
I am working on extracting the data from an old system.
I know it is written in RM/Cobol, however I cannot extract the data from the database as I don't know what method was used.
There are .DAT files and I have found a dbisam.lck.
I downloaded the trial versions for ODBC 3 and 4 versions but I cannot open the files. I am using the following code written in C#:

string dbisamFolder = @"c:\temp\";
string txtConStr = "DRIVER={DBISAM 3 ODBC Driver}; ConnectionType=Local; CatalogName=" + dbisamFolder + ";";

OdbcConnection objODBCCon = new OdbcConnection(txtConStr);
OdbcDataAdapter objDA;
DataSet objDS = new DataSet("DbiSam");
objODBCCon.Open();
objDA = new OdbcDataAdapter("SELECT * FROM [user]", objODBCCon); //user is the name of the user.dat file.
objDA.Fill(objDS);


When using the version 3 driver I get the error:
ERROR [HY000] [Elevate Software][DBISAM Database System] DBISAM Engine Error # 12035 The table 'user' is not the correct version
When using the version 4 driver I get the error:
ERROR [HY000] [Elevate Software][DBISAM] DBISAM Engine Error # 12036 The table or backup file 'user' is not valid

Am I doing something wrong? How can I check if it is dbisam files and how do I know the version used?

Regards,
Nicolas

Nicolas,

You can use DBSys (Database System Utility) and try to open the files.
If they are DBISAM file you should be able to open them with one of the
versions of DBSys.
However, if th files where created by an application writen in RM Cobol,
they are not dbisam files, they just happen to have a '.dat' extension.
The dbisam.lck file you found was perhaps created when you tried to open the
files with dbisam.

Fernando Dias
[Team Elevate]

Nicolas,

Fernando is correct - most likely the dbisam.lck file was created when you
attempted to open the table files.  You can check the date/time of the
dbisam.lck file to confirm this.

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com