Is there a reason it cannot be archived as a DBF?

>I have an idea. I'd like to be able to backup a DBF and remove it. I'd like to keep a record of the file, but treat it as "offline". I don't want the file to keep its physical size, but I'd like to know the original size.
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>I've found out about "Sparse files" on MSDN, but I don't do the Win32 API as well as some people who hang out here.
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>So here's what I'd like to see:
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>I'll pass the function a file name. The function will replace that file with a new file that has as small as possible a physical presence while having the original file name and size as its logical size.
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>Any help will be appreciated.
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>Thanks