John,

You could use ODBC or a 3rd party library like dbfTrieve that can access Btrieve files. You could also try Crystal Reports which can access Btrieve files natively.

The problem with Btrieve however is that the file doesn't contain any information about the structure of the data. Btrieve uses DDF files (Data Definition Files) that describe the structures of the tables. The DDF files are used by ODBC and Crystal Report. If you don't have the DDFs you cannot access the file with ODBC.

With dbfTrieve you don't need the DDFs, but you still need to know the structure of the table. There used to be a tool called DDF Sniffer that was analyzing a table and based on the pattern "guessed" the structure and allowed you to create the DDFs.

Check out the following site for information about Btrieve (which is now called Pervasive SQL): http://www.pervasive.com/

Here you can find info about dbfTrieve: http://www.hallogram.com/foxpro/

Choosing which method to use depends on your needs. If this is a one time job, I would try ODBC. If you need to interface with Btrieve files on a regular basis, I would use dbfTrieve. I have successfully used dbfTrieve, but it requires some work. Let me know if you choose this path and need some help.

HTH

>does anybody know how i can pull info from Btrieve data files (.BTR)? we have a legacy phone contact list at work that we need to get the info out of for a new system we have written...
>tia - john