Data Base Management

Reid Cooper

@Reid-Cooper
it seems like there are 2 versions of Aloha, one uses a SQL database and the other uses only DBF files easily manipulable in Fox Pro. But it seems like the SQL based Aloha stills has DBFs in the server.

So the easiest thing would be to download a dBase DBF viewer and try it on a copy of an Aloha DBF.

I'm out but I will check later to see if @WrCombs has success

It has been a while since I used Fox Pro, but I am pretty sure that Fox Pro can talk SQL. Fox Pro is "a SQL database." It is fully relational, just like JetDB and SQL Server.

WrCombs

@Reid-Cooper said in Data Base Management:

@WrCombs said in Data Base Management:

@JaredBusch said in Data Base Management:

@Reid-Cooper said in Data Base Management:

https://lonetreerob.wordpress.com/2012/06/26/the-technical-side-of-aloha-pos-integration/

Finally, from an Aloha interface perspective, I need to discuss the Aloha database file system. Instead of using a single large database file to store all of its configuration information, the developers of Aloha elected to put most of this information in Dbase format files (DBFs). You can read these files with Excel and you can read these files programmatically. You can write to these files, but that’s dangerous, because Aloha adds fields to these files from time to time with new versions—so you can end up having to write code that treats the DBFs differently, depending on the version.

Aloha is the database engine here. There is no database tool being used. It's just something akin to CSV files with DBF names. If you show us the contents of one of them, we could tell you in a few minutes what they are. But they are not from any "database" product, they are simply the data files of Aloha.

So it sounds like Notepad will likely work just fine.

and nailed it..

Notepad does not work, but I found one. It's called "db navigator".
The "dbfs" are stored in what looks to be "csv "?now that I look a little more closely.
Sorry for the confusion, but I honestly didn't have the answers for what you guys were asking.
I get it, my question in and of itself was vague. But I didn't have an understanding of what you all were talking about.

Notepad opens CSV, CSV is just a text document. What happens when you try to open in Notepad?

its a bunch of Symbols and circles

WrCombs

@dave_c said in Data Base Management:

@Reid-Cooper
it seems like there are 2 versions of Aloha, one uses a SQL database and the other uses only DBF files easily manipulable in Fox Pro. But it seems like the SQL based Aloha stills has DBFs in the server.

So the easiest thing would be to download a dBase DBF viewer and try it on a copy of an Aloha DBF.

I'm out but I will check later to see if @WrCombs has success

that is correct - there are 2 version of aloha manager ( which the Aloha software) Old Aloha ( version 5.3-6.7) and the NAM ( New Aloha Manager 12.3 and up)
basically old aloha manager is a "dbf" that is quick and easy.
the NAM is more of an issue.
SO with old aloha, we can just open Folder "A" and we can view the "dbfs" for accuracy ( not that we actually do) but with NAM we have to preform a Refresh - which breaks down the SQL files and puts them into Folder "A". but then it's the same as Old Aloha, because they can be easily opened with dbnavigator or excel.

Now the Only reason we open DBFs is to look for discrepancies, with in the files.

For example - Had a site call in about a printer not working properly and showing offline.
Did hardware trouble shooting. tested the cord and Printer on a different terminal, That left software issues within aloha, I was seeing one thing in the aloha manager software.
So I had to pop open a Dbf to see where the printer was supposed to connect to the terminal.

And things like that.

Reid Cooper

@WrCombs said in Data Base Management:

@Reid-Cooper said in Data Base Management:

@WrCombs said in Data Base Management:

@JaredBusch said in Data Base Management:

@Reid-Cooper said in Data Base Management:

https://lonetreerob.wordpress.com/2012/06/26/the-technical-side-of-aloha-pos-integration/

Finally, from an Aloha interface perspective, I need to discuss the Aloha database file system. Instead of using a single large database file to store all of its configuration information, the developers of Aloha elected to put most of this information in Dbase format files (DBFs). You can read these files with Excel and you can read these files programmatically. You can write to these files, but that’s dangerous, because Aloha adds fields to these files from time to time with new versions—so you can end up having to write code that treats the DBFs differently, depending on the version.

Aloha is the database engine here. There is no database tool being used. It's just something akin to CSV files with DBF names. If you show us the contents of one of them, we could tell you in a few minutes what they are. But they are not from any "database" product, they are simply the data files of Aloha.

So it sounds like Notepad will likely work just fine.

and nailed it..

Notepad does not work, but I found one. It's called "db navigator".
The "dbfs" are stored in what looks to be "csv "?now that I look a little more closely.
Sorry for the confusion, but I honestly didn't have the answers for what you guys were asking.
I get it, my question in and of itself was vague. But I didn't have an understanding of what you all were talking about.

Notepad opens CSV, CSV is just a text document. What happens when you try to open in Notepad?

its a bunch of Symbols and circles

Well, that suggests that it is a binary file of some sort. Might be something simple, like Base64, but not an ASCII file.

travisdh1

@WrCombs said in Data Base Management:

@dave_c said in Data Base Management:

@Reid-Cooper
it seems like there are 2 versions of Aloha, one uses a SQL database and the other uses only DBF files easily manipulable in Fox Pro. But it seems like the SQL based Aloha stills has DBFs in the server.

So the easiest thing would be to download a dBase DBF viewer and try it on a copy of an Aloha DBF.

I'm out but I will check later to see if @WrCombs has success

that is correct - there are 2 version of aloha manager ( which the Aloha software) Old Aloha ( version 5.3-6.7) and the NAM ( New Aloha Manager 12.3 and up)
basically old aloha manager is a "dbf" that is quick and easy.
the NAM is more of an issue.
SO with old aloha, we can just open Folder "A" and we can view the "dbfs" for accuracy ( not that we actually do) but with NAM we have to preform a Refresh - which breaks down the SQL files and puts them into Folder "A". but then it's the same as Old Aloha, because they can be easily opened with dbnavigator or excel.

Now the Only reason we open DBFs is to look for discrepancies, with in the files.

For example - Had a site call in about a printer not working properly and showing offline.
Did hardware trouble shooting. tested the cord and Printer on a different terminal, That left software issues within aloha, I was seeing one thing in the aloha manager software.
So I had to pop open a Dbf to see where the printer was supposed to connect to the terminal.

And things like that.

What a pain. PoS it really is.

dave_c

@WrCombs
Now I'm intrigued. Can you do me a favor?
Please download http://www.alexnolan.net/software/dbf.htm and try to open a copy of one of those DBfs.

If it works you will have your solution
If it does not work, I will owe you one

Reid Cooper

I am interested, too.

WrCombs

I will Download this To my laptop later and give it a try with a File from the lab here and let you know.

WrCombs

@dave_c said in Data Base Management:

@WrCombs
Now I'm intrigued. Can you do me a favor?
Please download http://www.alexnolan.net/software/dbf.htm and try to open a copy of one of those DBfs.

If it works you will have your solution

If it does not work, I will owe you one

So I know it's been a while since we talked about this ; however, this worked.
Just wanted to let @dave_c know it worked..
Big thanks

1337

@WrCombs said in Data Base Management:

@dave_c said in Data Base Management:

@WrCombs
Now I'm intrigued. Can you do me a favor?
Please download http://www.alexnolan.net/software/dbf.htm and try to open a copy of one of those DBfs.

If it works you will have your solution

If it does not work, I will owe you one

So I know it's been a while since we talked about this ; however, this worked.
Just wanted to let @dave_c know it worked..
Big thanks

Yeah, .dbf are dBase files. Simple binary format. One file per table.

Sometimes there are index files and other files as well. It's been around for a long time. It's what you use when you need something simple and don't want the overhead of a real RDBMs like Oracle or SQL Server. Modern equivalent would be SQLite.

dave_c

@WrCombs
Awesome!

@Pete-S
We were not sure they were dBase files. Even Oracle database uses .dbf extension for data files.

1337

@dave_c said in Data Base Management:

@Pete-S
We were not sure they were dBase files. Even Oracle database uses .dbf extension for data files.

I understand. You can't be sure until you try but usually you'll know if you're running Oracle because you'll have oracle listener and other services running as well as a completely different folder structure. When you find files that are dbf somewhere, they're usually dBase because you can make a small database inside an application just by importing some libraries. So dBase isn't something that has to be installed on the computer but Oracle is.