Microsoft access, Dbase, foxpro, clipper – HP Intelligent Management Center Standard Software Platform User Manual

Page 720

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different set of DLLs. However, some formats expand the basic three-tiered
structure.

The following sections cover the systems used by Crystal Reports to access
data from some of the most popular database formats.

Microsoft Access

Microsoft Access provides several means for opening its database files.
Each method has its advantages and disadvantages, and the technique that
you should use may depend on how your data is set up. Below is a description
of how to open Access data from Crystal Reports through the DAO engine.
Another technique uses Microsoft's Open Database Connectivity (ODBC)
standard, and is described in

Access

.

Note:

When you open an Access database using the DAO engine, Crystal Reports
opens the entire database and loads information about all tables and queries
from the database. To do this, Crystal Reports must reserve a large section
of your computer's memory (called a buffer) in advance.

dBASE, FoxPro, Clipper

Crystal Reports has been designed to open dBASE data simply and directly
through the xBase engine (inside crdb_p2bxbse.dll). FoxPro and Clipper are
dBASE compatible database formats, and Crystal Reports uses the same
DLL to access files created by any of these three DBMS applications.

Note:

The crdb_p2bxbse.dll translation layer supports FoxPro files up through
version 2.6. See

Visual FoxPro

for versions after 2.6.

The file crdb_p2bxbse.dll handles all translation between Crystal Reports
and the dBASE, FoxPro, or Clipper files. Each database file contains only a
single database table, but there is no limit to the number of files that can be
accessed by a report.

Note:

dBASE data can also be accessed through the Borland Database Engine
(BDE) using the translation file crdb_p2bbde.dll. To see how the BDE
communicates with database data, see

Paradox

. The BDE, however, does

not support FoxPro or Clipper data.

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Crystal Reports 2008 SP3 User's Guide

Accessing Data Sources

26

Direct access database files

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