Windows 7: DBF to CSV in batch: how to do?

sev7en · 11 Aug 2014

Dear Community,
I need to convert every minute (1 minute) a file generate in format DBF into the CSV format. I looked around some script, I found one script in Python but unfortunately it doesn't work.

Can you help me?

Cheers,

Kaktussoft · 11 Aug 2014

Quote: Originally Posted by sev7en

Dear Community,
I need to convert every minute (1 minute) a file generate in format DBF into the CSV format. I looked around some script, I found one script in Python but unfortunately it doesn't work.

Can you help me?

Cheers,

What program does create the DBF file each minute?

sev7en · 11 Aug 2014

Good afternoon,
thanks for the prompt reply. It is a internal monitor application for enviromental data mining. I have uploaded it here: https://www.m-e-d-i-a-f-i-r-e.com/?a2nn9ihat6zs90k

Cheers,

Kaktussoft · 11 Aug 2014

Can't you simply adjust the "monitor application" so it output to CSV?
Otherwise I don't have a solution.

sev7en · 11 Aug 2014

Hi, no sorry I cannot...

Alejandro85 · 11 Aug 2014

I think Excel can deal with both formats. Do you have it avaiable?
Try opening with Excel, and saving in CSV afterwards, see if the resulting file satisfies your needs.

sev7en · 11 Aug 2014

Good evening,
yes, Excel is able to handle it but I have to do that via command line, as it's a trigged operation (via file batch).

Regards,

Alejandro85 · 11 Aug 2014

Great. Then, it's just a matter of scripting Excel to do the job automatically. For example, you may use VBScript to instruct Excel to load the dbf, then re-save it as csv:

Code:

Const xlCSV = 6

'Open Excel and load dbf within it
Set objExcel = CreateObject("Excel.Application")
objExcel.DisplayAlerts = FALSE
objExcel.Visible = FALSE
Set objWorkbook = objExcel.Workbooks.Open("C:\temp\test.dbf")

'Just save it without any modification, chosing CSV as format
objWorkbook.SaveAs "C:\temp\test.csv", xlCSV
objWorkbook.Close

'Close Excel and quit
objExcel.Quit
WScript.Quit

Save this as a .vbs file. It can be called directly from command line afterwards, included in a .bat file, scheduled task or whatever.

Be sure to fully test it on real sample data, I've just played with it a little. While I think it's a reasonably good approach, it's definitely not production quality. For instance, it lacks error handling

. But you may be able to tune this to your exact needs.

sev7en · 12 Aug 2014

Dear Alejandro85,
thank you! The script is working like a charm but I have a problem: the file keep opened in the application and I cannot copy or overwrite it again.
Does it is a way to kill Excel after the conversion automatically? That script should be executed every 60 seconds.

sev7en · 12 Aug 2014

Dear Alejandro,
I just added that to avoid the security warning when the script is launched...

Quote:

set oShell= CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")
set oEnv = oShell.Environment("PROCESS")
oEnv("SEE_MASK_NOZONECHECKS") = 1
oShell.Run "script.vbs /norestart",0,True
oEnv.Remove("SEE_MASK_NOZONECHECKS")

but now we have to fix the issues of the message above as well the one for the security warning as the script is executed on a network drive.