If you know the layout, then you can use APPEND FROM ? TYPE SDF (check help on APPEND FROM command).

If you do not know layout, or they keep changing it, or file has records with different layouts (e.g. one master record, then several child records), you would have to write a custom conversion program.

This is what I'm trying to do. We receive files from registries in various formats. My first task is to identify layout, then translate their abbreviations into something, we can understand, etc., etc.
E.g. I end up with ~12 different program already and the worse thing is, that
1) I don't have enough files, so each new file can have some codes, which were not yet recognized
2) They are not consistent in that they are sending, e.g. the layout may change completely from the first file to the second...

>Good day everyone!
>I was wondering if anyone knows of a program to convert database files. We used to receive data in Visual Fox Pro (.dbf) format and now we receive the information in (.dat) text delimited format.
>Fox Pro won't open this type of file so I was wondering if there was a program that could convert it from .dat to .dbf or if there was a way to work with it in Fox Pro. The only workaround I have found so far is to open the .dat file in Microsoft Excel, convert the text to colums (separated by the '|' symbol and then export it as a dBase file. Please help!
>Thanks!
>Max