How to read/write dBase III files using C#/.NET ODBC or OLE?

Question

I have searched for various techniques on how to read/write dBase III (dbf) files using OLEDB or ODBC with C#/.NET. I have tried almost all of the tecniques posted, but wit

Answer 1

I realize this is an old thread, but in case someone gets here by google (like I have few days ago).. As I wrote here, the elegant solution is to use LINQ to VFP to read from and write to DBF files. I tested it with some dBase III files. It goes like this:

You define your table to match the DBF definition like this:

public partial class MyTable 
{
    public System.Int32 ID { get; set; }
    public System.Decimal Field1 { get; set; }
    public System.String Field2 { get; set; }
    public System.String Field3 { get; set; }
}

You define the context like this:

public partial class Context : DbEntityContextBase 
{
    public Context(string connectionString)
        : this(connectionString, typeof(ContextAttributes).FullName) 
    {
    }

    public Context(string connectionString, string mappingId)
        : this(VfpQueryProvider.Create(connectionString, mappingId)) 
    {
    }

    public Context(VfpQueryProvider provider)
        : base(provider) 
    {
    }

    public virtual IEntityTable MyTables 
    {
        get { return this.GetTable(); }
    }
}

You define context attributes like this:

public partial class ContextAttributes : Context 
{
    public ContextAttributes(string connectionString)
        : base(connectionString) {
    }

    [Table(Name="mytable")]
    [Column(Member="ID", IsPrimaryKey=true)]
    [Column(Member="Field1")]
    [Column(Member="Field2")]
    [Column(Member="Field3")]
    public override IEntityTable MyTables 
    {
        get { return base.MyTables; }
    }
}

You also need a connection string, you can define it in app.config like this (Data\ relative path is used as the source of DBF files in this case):

And finally, you can perform reading and writing to and from DBF files as simple as:

// Construct a new context
var context = new Context(ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["VfpData"].ConnectionString);

// Write to MyTable.dbf
var my = new MyTable
{
    ID = 1,
    Field1 = 10,
    Field2 = "foo",
    Field3 = "bar"
}
context.MyTables.Insert(my);

// Read from MyTable.dbf
Console.WriteLine("Count:  " + context.MyTables.Count());
foreach (var o in context.MyTables)
{
    Console.WriteLine(o.Field2 + " " + o.Field3);
}