>Ed-
>
>>Nadya,
>>
>>I assume that you use Mailer's own export function to export the data to a txt file or do you know what data format that Mailer's+ keeps the national database in and do the exporting yourself?
>
>Is Mailer one of your competitors?
>
>Do these apps have file export? Could you export a small subset of data so we could see it?
>
>Also, have you checked out http://www.wotsit.org/, where you can lookup different program's file formats? That won't help much if the data is compressed or encrypted on CD. However, when you run one of the applications, you might check your temp directory (or the program's directory) for any files that might give you a clue as the uncompressed data. For example, they may suck data into a temporary file on harddrive. That's a WAG.
>
>It also occured to me...is BTrieve a very efficient (ie. variable field length) data store?


Nancy,

Yes Mailers+ is a competitor. What they have are functions to export subsets of the data to dbf or csv files. The files created don't necessarily show how they store the data or all of the fields that are present in their national database.

I may try to keep an eye on the temp and/or program directories just out of curiousity. Windows also has a log directory that keeps track of all of the internal programs that are being run when any program runs. This is real handy in debuging problems. It's been so long since I used it I can't remember what the directory is called or where it is but it may be worth looking into again since it may show if something like ZipMagic was run.

Thanks again.

Ed