>>>>I received data files from a customer with a .dat extension and I can't figure out whose platform they would be. Any suggestions? Obviously, the customer has given me no clue.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>I have a problem with a customer who have a system in cobol. Data files use .DAT (in this microfocus cobol old version)
>>
>>Yikes, is there any ODBC driver for this. . . I mean commercially available.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>Bill
>
>Have you tried to open your .DAT file in Notepad/Wordpad? IMHO, DAT is a catch-all. Your data might just be comma-delimited. If I remember well my MicroFocus COBOL classes, data files were just fixed-length text file, such as:
>
>

>0001FIRST ITEM         005.5010<CRLF>
>0002SECOND ITEM        010.0000<CRLF>
>

>
>that could be read as:
>
>Item No: 0001
>Item name: FIRST ITEM
>Price: 005.50
>Quantity: 10
> were often used as placeholders just so that the file could be readable more easily by humans.
>
>I think it's worth a look!
>
>

>Sylvain Demers
>

Wish it looked that clear. It does seem to have a fixed record length and has what appears to be a header record describing the fields with PAT:LNAME (patient lastname) but there are a load of special characters in the file between fields. Thanks for the input though.

CySolutions, Medical Information Technology
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