
*******************************************************************************
 First off, this is not the PARADOX (r) RDD. Nor does it resemble it, I think.
 God, I hope it doesn't resemble it.  If it does, we're all in trouble.
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I've never seen the RDD's.  For that matter, I hadn't seen a Paradox (r)
file before two weeks ago and I hadn't seen the Paradox(r) front end until a
week ago.  So this isn't the most perfect program in the world but,
surprisingly, it does work well in most cases.

It was written because I was telling user groups that you can use TBrowse to
browse anything your heart desires.  Of course, I didn't have an example of
this other than DBF's, arrays and memo files.  This turned into a monster.

The numbers turned out not to be in the same format as the DBF format.  Dates
turned out to be an offset from another date.  The only user definable length
of a field is for AlphaNumerics.  I had to adjust much of my thinking.  And
with all the calculations the program does to determine the proper numbers, it
slows things down - it can be discouraging.

But my original goal is met.  I now have a PARADOX (r) database viewer that
works better than the one that comes with my PC Shell program, which comes from
a major software utility company.  And I feel with a little imagination and
a lot of patience I can view anything I want with TBrowse.

This program is nothing more than an exercise in the capabilities of TBrowse.
If you find it more than that, that is great, but please don't depend on it
for anything other than that.

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		SYNTAX:   READDB.EXE <database>.db
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Where it doesn't work.

NEGATIVE NUMBERS -   I have yet to figure out the algorithm for negative
                     numbers.  A major PC Shell program has the same results
                     when displaying negative numbers in a Paradox file so I
                     don't feel totally bad about this.  If somebody can make
                     a suggestion, that would be great.  I just haven't had
                     time to work on it.

LONG RECORDS -       Paradox (r), as far as I can see, divides its database
                     into sections that are multiples of 1024 bytes with 2048
                     being the minimum size of a section.  It then tries to 
                     fit as many records as it can in each section.  If the
                     database records are over 2042 bytes in length this
                     program does not work on them.  All the sample
                     databases in Paradox 3.5 fell into the category that my
                     program works with.  The major PC Shell program that I
                     mentioned earlier, would read the first section but
                     totally crapped out on all other sections no matter what
                     the record size was.  I am going to work on that when I
                     get some time.


I'm not trying to make excuses but I haven't had much time to work on it.
My major goal is met, so I am uploading it.  Any help from you people, before
the RDD is released, would be most helpful.

						Thanking You
						Micheal Todd Charron

P.S.  This has only been tested with the Paradox (r) 3.5 sample databases and
      with my own, converted from .DBF, databases.  It worked fine with those
      but I don't know what would happen with previous versions.  It's not
      going to blow up your computer or anything. 
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