Link DBF files with long names

[Gyuri]

Hello,

This is the first time I'm here. Greetings to all, and thanks for Your help.

My problem:

I work for a District Health Insurance House. We must use some applications
got from the National Insurance House, written in different programming
languages.
Three years before I've created an Access (2003) application that collects
data from different data sourses (Sybase, MS SQL and *.dbf).

The .dbf files have long names, like "_aaa_bbbbb_ccccccccc_2006.dbf"

On the newer computers we have Windows XP Professional SP3 and Office
Professional 2007, and on these machines I cannot link these long named dbf
files.

Can anyone help me?

Thank You,

Gyuri

 

[Clifford Bass]

Hi Gyuri,

dBase was an old DOS, pre-Windows 95 program that used the old DOS 8.3
format names (i.e. filename.ext). Access 2007 may be enforcing that
limitation. Assuming you are not able to rename the files to use that
format, you could use the Windows autogenerated 8.3 format. To determine it
start up a Command Prompt (Start, All Programs, Accessories). At the prompt
type in something like this:

dir "c:\Documents and Settings\MyName\My Documents\*.dbf" /x /p

Where the part in quotes up to the asterisk (*) is the drive and entire
path where you have the DBF files. This will display the 8.3 file names and
then the long names. When you link to the file specify the entire path,
using the 8.3 part instead of the long file name. Oddly, it does not seem to
mind the long parts of the path to the file, just the long file names. Added
information: The /x switch of the dir command tells it to display the 8.3
format. The /p tells it to pause after each screenful. Type "dir /?" for
other options.

Hope that helps,

Clifford Bass

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

http://www.mvps.org/access/api/api0020.htm at "The Access Web" has code that
will let you convert between long name and short name.