gdbdump(1)							   HP100LX Tools							gdbdump(1)

NAME

       gdbdump - dump HP 100LX database into ASCII format

SYNOPSIS

       gdbdump [-noqswm] file

DESCRIPTION

       gdbdump	exports  the contents of an HP 100LX database into an ASCII form.  file is the name of the 100LX database to read; the results are
       written to the terminal and can be redirected or piped as needed.  The output format is suitable for input to  many  database  packages	as
       well as to gdbload(1).

   Options
       gdbdump recognizes the following options:

	      -n     Suppress  the  first  line of the output, which normally contains the names of all of the database fields.  Note that if this
		     option is specified, the output is not compatible with gdbload(1).  However, this option may be needed for compatibility with
		     other database programs trying to read the output.

	      -o     Omit note fields from the output.	Note fields are included by default.

	      -q     Suppress warning messages.

	      -s     Write special characters (character codes 128-254, inclusive) directly to the output.  The default is to represent such char-
		     acters in 
nn notation.

	      -w     Wrap long lines.  For some databases, the output line length can be larger than some programs  (notably  vi(1))  can  handle,
		     especially  if  records  contain  long  notes.  This option wraps each output line at about 75 characters, marking the end of
		     lines to be continued with a backslash ().  gdbload(1) understands this format.

	      -m     Write multi-line string (i.e. note) fields on multiple lines. Thus the quoted string will span newlines. Without this option,
		     newlines  in  strings will be output as 
 sequences, and the complete string will be subject to line wrapping if specified
		     by the -w option.

   Output Format Description
       The output of this program is an ASCII text file which starts with a line containing field names (unless -n was specified) and is  followed
       by  one	line  for each record of the database.	Note that any of these lines may be split into multiple lines if -w is specified, and that
       newlines in strings may cause further splitting if specified by the -m option.  Each "logical" line contains all of the fields of the data-
       base, in the same order in which their field names appeared on the first line of the output.  The fields are separated by commas.

       Exactly	how  each field appears in the output depends on its type.  Text fields, category fields, and note fields appear with the contents
       inside quote marks (").	Quote marks and backslashes within the text of the field are escaped by preceding them with a backslash ().  New-
       lines  are  printed as 
 and carriage returns as 
, unless the -m option is used. Non-printing or non-ASCII characters as 
nn, where nnn
       is an octal character code.  (See the description of the -s flag, above.)

       Number fields appear as they do in the database.  Date fields appear in the format YYYYMMDD; for example, August 15, 1993 would	appear	as
       19930815.  Time fields appear in the format HHMM, where HH is in the range 00-23.

       Radio buttons and check boxes appear as 1 if selected, 0 otherwise.

       All other field types, including application-defined types, are omitted from the output.

       This output format can be used as input to gdbload(1).

WARNINGS

       gdbdump	cannot handle the application-defined records and fields in HP 100LX Appointment Book and World Time databases.  Running this pro-
       gram on such databases will give useful, but incomplete, output.

       Records are printed in the order stored in the file, i.e., randomly.

       This program cannot handle password-protected databases.  Attempts to dump password-protected databases will have unpredictable results.

AUTHOR

       gdbdump was written by Steven Roth, stever@cup.hp.com, and is being maintained by Arne Christensen, arc@pine.dk.  Contact  the  latter  for
       bug reports, enhancement requests, or to get a copy of the source code.

DISCLAIMER

       This  program  is  released into the public domain and neither the author nor the maintainer place any restrictions on its use.	We make no
       warranties or guarantees for this program and you use it at your own risk.  This program is supplied by us personally and not  by  Hewlett-
       Packard Co. or Pine Tree Systems, which incur no obligations pertaining to it.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

       Many thanks to Andy Gryc for publishing the details of the database file formats!

SEE ALSO

       gdbload(1).

Steve Roth et.al.						   February 1996							gdbdump(1)