How to open DBF? How to edit dbf file

DBF - File format created to work with databases, reports and spreadsheets. Its structure consists of a header, which describes the contents, and the main part where the entire content is in the table form. A distinctive feature of this expansion is the possibility of interaction with most database management systems.

Consider the software supporting viewing of this format.

Method 1: DBF Commander

DBF Commander is a multifunctional application for processing DBF files of different encodings, allows basic manipulations with documents. It applies for a fee, but has a trial period.

For opening:

Method 2: DBF Viewer Plus

DBF Viewer Plus is a free tool for viewing and editing a DBF, a simple and convenient interface is represented in English. It has the function of creating its own tables, does not require installation.

To view:

Method 3: DBF Viewer 2000

DBF Viewer 2000 - a program with a fairly simplified interface, allows you to work with files with more than 2 GB. It has a Russian language and a trial period of use.

To open:

Method 4: CDBF

CDBF is a powerful way to edit and view databases, also allows you to create reports. You can expand functionality using additional plugins. There is a Russian language, it applies for a fee, but has a trial version.

To view:

Method 5: Microsoft Excel

Excel is one of the components of the Microsoft Office software package, well known to most users.

To open:

Conclusion

We reviewed the basic ways of opening DBF documents. Only DBF Viewer Plus is allocated from the selection - completely free software, unlike the rest, which are distributed on a paid basis and have only a trial period.

The most common problem, due to which users cannot open this file, is an incorrectly assigned program. To fix it in Windows, you need to right-click on the file, in the context menu, bring the mouse to "Open Using" item, and select the Select Program item drop-down menu. As a result, you will see a list of installed programs on your computer, and you can choose a suitable one. We also recommend checking the box opposite the item "Use this application for all DBF files".

Another problem with which our users also occur quite often - the DBF file is damaged. Such a situation may arise in cases of cases. For example: the file was downloaded not fully as a result of server error, the file was damaged initially, etc. To eliminate this problem, use one of the recommendations:

• Try finding the desired file in another source on the Internet. You may be lucky to find a more suitable version. Google search example: "File FileType: DBF". Just replace the word "file" to the name you need;
• Ask you to send you the source file again, it may have been damaged during transmission;

DBF format tables are known from the distant 1980. Since then, DBase format has evolved, developed, DBASE II, DBASE III and DBASE IV appeared, many popular programs working with databases are developed to date, in which the DBF format tables are used to this day. The DBF table format is quite old, but it continues to be used to create both large and ambitious and small projects, DBF tables are used for educational purposes, for dating and studying basic knowledge and presentation of the organization databases. DBFnavigator is a free program for viewing and editing the DBF format tables, a simple and convenient utility.

With the DBFnavigator program, you can open and view the DBF tables, edit tables - change, add and delete records. Using DBFnavigator, you can change the table structure, add, change and delete the table fields, compress the DBF tables to clean them from remote records (garbage collection), change the Windows-\u003e DOS table encoding and vice versa. In the program, you can sort the table entry, copy the records and individual fields, display the rows of the printing table, perform the search and apply to view the filter table records, change the options for opening DBF files.

Screenshots of the DBFnavigator program

DBF Viewer 2000 ® - App for viewing and editing DBF all types - Clipper, Dbase, FoxPro, Visual Foxpro, Visual Dbase.

The program performs various actions: requests, deleting duplicates or export to various formats - faster than you expect!

DBF editor dynamically creates visual forms based on the DBF file structure for editing and queries. The program also allows you to view and edit the Memo fields of the following formats: DBASE III, DBASE IV, FOXPRO, VFP and DBASE LEVEL 7.

The fullness program supports the use of a command line for the following: Import, Export, Deleting Duplicate Records or Replacing Data in DBF files. Works independently of various DBMS - all you need to view and edit a DBF file to install the application!

Why DBF Viewer 2000
unique?

Simple and intuitive interface

The application interface is quite simple and convenient, allows you to save a lot of time with everyday work.

Convenient modification of the DBF file structure in DBF Viewer 2000

You can add, delete, rename, change the order of fields and optimize the structure of DBF files.

Import data from various formats with DBF Viewer 2000

DBF Viewer 2000 Allows you to import data from the following formats: TXT, CSV, Excel (XLS, XLSX), DBF and PARADOX. Import data can be performed with preview or from a command line.

DBF Viewer 2000 offers extended export opportunities

The application allows you to export DBF files in Excel (XLS, XLSX), CSV, TXT, SQL, SDF, XML, HTML, PRG, and MS SQL, MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL scripts.

DBF Viewer 2000 helps remove duplicates

Removing duplicate records is easy as 1-2-3.

Works on all platforms

DBF Viewer 2000 launches on all versions of Windows from 95 to XP, Vista, 7/8/10 and Server Editions (32/64-bit)

Free universal DBF editor that allows you to open existing and create new databases. It has very small sizes, it can start from a flash drive and has many advanced tools to work with DBF files, among which there are even support for SQL queries!

Gallery Screenshotovot

Usually on the site we light the programs that will be interested in a wide range of readers, but today the case is not quite ordinary :). I once worked as a "computer specialist" in several state offices and there often had to deal with various FoxPro database programs ...

The main problem of all these applications was that a simple user could easily damage the database so that it was impossible to open it with regular means, so I had to be perverted to return it to life (which was not always done, given the "abilities" of "wild yuzvers" :)).

And now, a few years later, as I do not work there, we sent a request to add a new free program for editing DBF-databases, which has an uncomplicated name - SDBF.. About her and talk :)

Comparison with a paid analogue

SDBF, despite its portability (can work with a flash drive!) And small size, is a fairly advanced database editor that allows you to create, edit and export any DBF format databases, starting with the XBASEIII specification, and ending with modern XvisualFoxPro! Compare SDBF functional, with the possibilities of one of the most advanced editors of this sense DBF Commander Professional:

From the above placle, we see that programs are slightly different in functionality, but SDBF, firstly, is portable (which is usually important, since each computer deeds master prefers to wear a set of necessary programs on the flash drive), and secondly, is completely free!

First launch SDBF.

To start the program, it is enough to unpack from the downloaded archive to any place and open the exe file received. Before us will appear an empty window of the following type:

Drag & Drop, alas, not supported, so to start work, we will need to call the "File" menu and there already choose one of the two available actions: "Create" a new base or "open" existing. Open the existing database:

We will open the contents of the selected database in the form of a table. In the "zero" line displays the names of the fields, and starting with the first - the content itself. Under the content below there is a toolbar and status string.

In the latter, quite a lot of useful service information is displayed, including the number of entries in the database, encoding, creation date and automatically defined format. The SDBF formats do not support only early XBASE (I and II) and allows you to open and create DBF files of the following types:

• xBASE III - VII;
• xclipper;
• xFoxPro;
• xvisualFoxPro.

Data Search and Filter Tools

The SDBF program allows you to directly edit any cell of an open database, however, the desired cells still need to find ... If the base is small and simple, then this can be done quite quickly and manually. However, if there are several dozen records, or even hundreds, then it can be pretty difficult to look for.

But this is not such a problem, because in SDBF there are several tools at once, allowing unnecessary data to cut out and display only what you need!

These tools are on the bottom of the toolbar. Here at first there are 8 navigation buttons, which allow you to move on the basis (arrows), add / delete records, as well as confirm or cancel changes. The functions you need begin with the ninth button - "Search":

When you activate the button, a small window appears with a search form. We need to specify the text you want to find and choose from the drop-down list the field for which the search will be made. Now click the "Find Next" button and the program will automatically highlight the string below for the current release in which there is a desired text. The re-pressing of the button will allocate the line below from the current, in which there are the same items, etc.

Sometimes in databases there is a non-standard cell formatting: unnecessary spaces, tabs and other characters that are visually displayed, but affect the result of the search result. If you encounter such a case, then for normal operation, it will be enough for you to read the box "Taking into account the format" in the lower central part of the search box and the desired rows will be displayed.

The search function is convenient when we need to quickly find a single entry of specific data. But there are cases when it would be more convenient to display several lines at once, which contain only certain information. In this case, the second function will help us (the button of which goes immediately at the search button) - "Filter":

To use filtering, we need to first make a request and enter it into a specially designated field (immediately outside the button in the central part of the toolbar). The principle of drawing up request is simple, but not entirely obvious. We first need to enter the field name for which you need to filter the database table, and then equate the filter value to a specific text that we need to find all the lines.

The value take into single quotes, after which we click the "Filter" button (it becomes clamped) and we obtain the table containing the data only with the values \u200b\u200bdefined to us in the specified fields (in the example, we filtered all rows with the "USA" value in the "COUNTRY" field (The value indication register does not have the value)). You can simply return the table to the original form by repeatedly pressing the "Filter" button (it becomes again pressed).

The filtering field may contain the simplest conditions "and" (to clarify the request for several fields) and "OR" (for an alternative sample of data from different fields). Unfortunately, SDBF does not support exclusive requests (such as NOT), but this restriction we can bypass in another way, which will be discussed just below.

By the way, so as not to enter a manual filtering request, you can use the following trick: Highlight any entry in the field for which you will filter and press the "Alt + F" key combination (not F4 :))). The request will be automatically formed, and in the value will stand the "*" sign, which is a search mask and corresponds to any number of any characters.

Alas, this is the only type of masks that can be used in SDBF and, which is even sadder, one request can contain only one mask: (Therefore, if you need to filter the same field in several parameters, you will have to use the "and" operator (Fast formation of a request by pressing "Ctrl + Alt + F") or "OR" ("SHIFT + ALT + F").

Execute SQL queries to database tables

Search and filtering is undoubtedly good, but not always convenient. When the number of records is great, we can easily lose sight of the data we need when parsing tables. However, in this case, SDBF has an excellent feature - support for SQL queries!

With the help of such requests to SDBF, we can:

1. Dynamically format our table, creating a sample only by defined desired fields (SELECT and SELECT TOP statements);
2. Copy data from one database to another (INSERT FROM and INSERT INTO);
3. Change and delete content specific lines (Update and Delete, respectively);
4. Group parallel requests (UNION);
5. Form summary tables (Pivot).

To start working with the requests, we need to press the "SQL query" button at the right end of the toolbar. However, the result of such actions will be somewhat discounted: the contents of the newly editable database will disappear, and one more empty window with two fields will appear on top of the working window (at the top - the data output field, and at the bottom of the input).

It is not necessary to scare :). You just need to immediately enter the desired SQL query in the lower field with the name of the desired database. If you do not remember this name, you can activate the SDBF side panel (pressing on the gray vertical strip on the right), on which all the databases that you have opened in the form of a list are displayed:

It is also desirable to memorize hotkeys to speed up the work, which can be viewed by calling the F1 key pressing. There are only three of them, but they allow you to significantly speed up the process of creating the right requests.

So, a combination of "Ctrl + Space" - display a pop-up window with a list of available database names (so as not to look into the sidebar), "Ctrl + F" - will display a list of functions for the current operator, and "Ctrl + Enter" will start the query execution process . In addition, if you click on the input field with the right mouse button (call the context menu), then we will receive a list of supported SDBF operators.

Let's go back to our previous screenshot and look at the simplest request that is compiled there. It is based on the "SELECT" operator, which means that the sample returns us. The sampling parameter is "*", which means the output of any data, however, we could specify there through the comma of the names of any fields of the database table.

The sample that we looked above is the simplest, however, SDBF allows you to perform queries and more comprehensive. In the following screenshot, we will see a sample, a dynamically formed table consisting of fields that contain customer names, a city in which those live and the country. Moreover, customer filtering goes precisely by the country of residence (U.S.A) and the results are displayed in alphabetical order:

If you disassemble this request, then we will see the method of sampling on the fields indicated by the comma after the SELECT operator. Next, all the same specifying the name of the database, but now the request does not end.

The next step will be the enumeration of the functions of the main operator, which will have to be executed as a result of the processing of the request. Here are two of them.

The first - "WHERE" has similarity with the filter discussed by us earlier, and performs a similar action - allows you to select only those records that match the condition.

The second function - "Order by" is responsible for sorting the results obtained according to one of the fields (in this case, by the field with the client name - "Name") in the alphabetical (parameter "ASC") or inverted ("DESC") order.

Naturally, the example above is also quite primitive, but it displays the general essence of creating and processing SQL queries. If you want to know more about them, I advise you to read the manuals here: http://dimonchik.com/insert.html or https://www.sql.ru/articles/articles.aspx?g\u003dsql&s\u003d0.

By the way, the SDBF plus is the ability to export the resulting table as a result of a query, as a new database or in HTML, RTF, or a CSV file! To do this, it suffices to call the context menu of the table display fields and select the appropriate item.

Additional features from the menu string

With the main capabilities of SDBF, we figured out, but it all does not end. A whole range of useful and even unique features in themselves the line of the menu, the one that we used to open a database :) So, many useful features (which sometimes allow you to do without SQL queries) in the "Table" menu:

Among other "utmost" such as changing coding and merging databases at the very bottom, we can find the item "Change the structure". This item causes an additional window in which we can completely change all the fields of the open table, add new ones, or delete more unnecessary partitions (the same window opens when you create a database from zero).

Specifically, we can change the sequence of fields, their names, types, sizes (number of characters in the cell) and accuracy (bit, usually set automatically and depends on the type of field).

The only thing to remember when editing (and especially creating) the bases is that for each type of base there are sets of field types and they are often (if not to take into account the main N, C, D) differ. For example, in Xclipper databases, there is no support for the fields with pictures (p, b), and Xbase up to the seventh version do not support auto-closet fields (+). That is, you should always remember compatibility :).

Since we consider the menu bar, do not forget to look into the "Field" menu:

There are only two functions here, but they are very helpful! Especially the first - "replace". It allows you to quickly automatically replace the values \u200b\u200bin the entire column of the specified field, or specific words and characters throughout the database!

The function "Calculate" is an analogue of Excel Avto-Speech formulas and gives us the opportunity to produce such mathematical and statistical operations as the foundation of the fields of the field, calculating the average arithmetic, as well as maxima and minima of values. Naturally, to perform calculations, the field types must be numeric (N, F, I, O, B).

The last function that is not so obvious, but it can be useful is the built-in Hex editor:

It allows you to edit any cell data. To do this, it is enough to select the contents that you want to change and select the last item in the context menu - "open in hex". All - you can edit and save or immediately print the result!

Advantages and disadvantages of the program

• portability and small size;
• support for virtually all types of DBF files;
• the ability to create databases from zero;
• support SQL queries;
• built-in search system, filtering and editing data.

• does not allow you to set more than one mask in the filter;
• no cancellation function.

conclusions

The SDBF program with its modest sizes and system requirements allows you to do with DBF databases if not all, it is very, very much ... And the implementation of support for SQL queries generally allows you to display the database editing on a new level! With their help, you can easily compensate for many shortcomings through the graphical interface.

The most big disappointment, in my opinion, was the absence of the most trivial function "Cancel the last action" in the world "Ctrl + Z": (the most offensive thing is that the user may, for example, accidentally apply the auto transaction throughout the field, and return The data will already be impossible: (

For the SIM one can stating that the program in the functional plan is more than successful, but before work with it, always follow the ancient administrative rule - create backups! And you will be happy :)

P.S. It is allowed to freely copy and quote this article if you specify an open active reference to the source and maintaining the authorship of Ruslana TRADER.