DBF

DBF is a small fast library for reading dBase, xBase, Clipper and FoxPro database files

• Project page: http://github.com/infused/dbf
• API Documentation: http://rdoc.info/projects/infused/dbf
• Report bugs: http://github.com/infused/dbf/issues
• Questions: Email keithm@infused.org and put DBF somewhere in the subject line

Features

• No external dependencies
• Fields are type cast to the appropriate Ruby types
• ActiveRecord like finder methods
• Ability to dump the database schema in the portable ActiveRecord::Schema format
• Ruby 1.9.1 compatible

Installation

gem install dbf

Basic Usage

Load a DBF file:

require 'rubygems'
require 'dbf'

table = DBF::Table.new("widgets.dbf")

Enumerate all records

table.records.each do |record|
  puts record.name
  puts record.email
end

Load a single record using records or find

table.records(6)
table.find(6)

Attributes can also be accessed through the attributes hash in original or underscored form or as an accessor method using the underscored name.

table.record(4).attributes["PhoneBook"]
table.record(4).attributes["phone_book"]
table.record(4).phone_book

Search for records using a simple hash format. Multiple search criteria are ANDed. Use the block form of find if the resulting recordset could be large otherwise all records will be loaded into memory.

# find all records with first_name equal to Keith
table.find(:all, :first_name => 'Keith') do |record|
  puts record.last_name
end

# find all records with first_name equal to Keith and last_name equal
# to Morrison
table.find(:all, :first_name => 'Keith', :last_name => 'Morrison') do |record|
  puts record.last_name
end

# find the first record with first_name equal to Keith
table.find :first, :first_name => 'Keith'

# find record number 10
table.find(10)

Migrating to ActiveRecord

An example of migrating a DBF book table to ActiveRecord using a migration:

require 'dbf'

class CreateBooks < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
    table = DBF::Table.new('db/dbf/books.dbf')
    eval(table.schema)

    table.each do |record|
      Book.create(record.attributes)
    end
  end

  def self.down
    drop_table :books
  end
end

Command-line utility

A small command-line utility called dbf is installed along with the gem.

$ dbf -h
usage: dbf [-h|-s|-a] filename
  -h = print this message
  -s = print summary information
  -a = create an ActiveRecord::Schema

Limitations and known bugs

• DBF is read-only
• External index files are not used

License

(The MIT Licence)

Copyright (c) 2006-2009 Keith Morrison keithm@infused.org, http://www.infused.org

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.