Memo and BLOB

DBF Commander Professional supports Memo and BLOB type fields.

 

Memo

The Character type field allows to keep up to 254 symbols only. To store text data of indeterminate length, use Memo field type. Actually, the data are stored in a separate *.FPT file, with the same name as the current DBF file. Memo field size limited only by the amount of available disk space.

To view the full value of the Memo field, double click (or press Enter) the cell you need. The Memo field value will be shown in the separate window, containing text box:

Memo

You can to do a changes in the text box, then click OK (or press Ctrl+S) to save the changes, or Cancel (Escape key) to discard them.

While changing the structure of a DBF file containing Memo data, the Memo backup file is created. It's extension is *.TBK. The point of those *.TBK files is similar to *.BAK files (backup of a DBF file). If you don't need it - delete it safely.

Memo data may also presents in dBase files as well. In this case, the behaviour is similar, but the Memo data stores in *.DBT file.

If you are trying to open a DBF file with Memo, but there is no the Memo-file (*.FPT) itself, you'll be asked if you want to convert the DBF file to file without Memo. This means, the Memo flag in the DBF file will be removed, and type of all of the Memo fields will be changed to Character(254,0) as well.

If in this same directory there is the current DBF file's backup files (*.BAK or *.TBK), they will be deleted.

 

BLOB

To store binary data of any kind, such as text, an image file, an executable file, or a stream of bytes, and with indeterminate length, intended the BLOB data type. BLOB means Binary Large Object, and the BLOB field size is limited only by the amount of available disk space. BLOB type is named as General in the File Structure dialog box. The binary data itself are stored in a separate *.FPT file, as well in case of Memo.

The DBF Commander Professional provides the possibility to maintain an image data in a BLOB (General) field, since it is the most frequent and useful way to process pictures along with DBF files.

If you have a DBF file with General type field, to view or edit image data, double click (or press Enter) the cell. The dialog window appears:

BLOB

If the field contains an image, it'll be shown at the window (as above). Otherwise, the <EMPTY> inscription will be in place of an image. There are a few of BLOBfield image processing commands:

  • Load new image (Ctrl+L) - click to load new image from an image file. Supported formats: PNG, JPG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, ICO.
  • Save the image (Ctrl+Shift+S) - saves the current BLOB field image to an image file you'll choose. Supported formats: PNG, JPG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, ICO.
  • Copy image to clipboard (Ctrl+C) - copies the image to clipboard, in order to you could paste it in a graphic editor.
  • Clear image - clears the image and sets the NULL value. Please ensure, current BLOB field can accept NULL values.
  • Fit window to image actual size (Ctrl+A) - resizes the image preview window in order to show you actual size of the image.

After you've finished editing, Save the changes or Cancel (Esc shortcut) them.