Covert dbase to html tables?

[Andrzej Kowalski]

At 07:43 10/27/96 -0800, you wrote:
>
>Can anyone recommend a way to convert a dBASE 4 database into html tables?
>I maintain a large bibliographic database of government documents and
>would like to make this available on my library's website.  I have not
>been able to find an easy way to do this. The applications I have looked
>at seem to require substantially more technical knowledge than I currently
>possess. Our environment is unix.

I would avoid creating static HTML pages from dBASE4 tables.  Not only does
this create administrative headaches in terms of keeping the pages up to
date, but you lose the ability to search the holdings by fields.  You could
of course use a free text engine to index your static HTML pages, but this
would not provide the flexibility of searching by fields.  Nor would it
solve the administrative problem.

A better solution would be to look at one of the many free/share or
commercial databases that will produce HTML on-the-fly in response to
users' queries.  Since you run Unix, you will find there are a
proliferation of such tools, including our own.  You could export your data
from dBASE e.g. comma delimited, and load it into one of these databases
periodically.  This process could be automated with scripts.

>
>If there is not an easy way to convert directly from dBASE, perhaps there 
>is a way to convert a delimited ascii file into html tables? I can 
>easily save the database as a delimited file. Is there a way to convert 
>this into tables?
>
>All suggestions (easy or otherwise) greatly appreciated.
>
>Thanks, 
>
>Dave Vose
>
>***************************************************************************
***
>Dave Vose				 |
>Government Documents/Reference Librarian | "There are always possibilities."
>Binghamton University Libraries		 |		    Mr. Spock
>Binghamton, NY 13902-6012		 |
>(607) 777-4907				 |
>dvose at library.lib.binghamton.edu	 |
>***************************************************************************
***
>

Andrzej Kowalski
################
Andrzej Kowalski
KE Software Inc.
andrzej at kesoftware.com                                   
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