Knowledge Base

Works: Field Names Lost or Truncated When Saving as dBASE

Article ID: 146234

Article Last Modified on 11/24/2003

APPLIES TO

This article was previously published under Q146234

SUMMARY

When you save a Works database file in dBASE III or dBASE IV format, the following changes occur:

  • Field names longer than 10 characters are truncated.
  • If the first 10 characters of two or more field names are identical, some field names are lost.
  • If the dBASE file is opened again in Works some fields showing in the Form view are not visible in the List view.
This is a limitation of the dBASE file format.

MORE INFORMATION

The following example shows typical field names from a Works database:

Name:
Company:
Address Line 1:
Address Line 2:
City:
State:
Zip:

If you save the database in a dBASE III or dBASE IV file format, and then open the dBASE file again in Works, the following field names appear in Form view:

NAME:
COMPANY:
ADDRESS_LI:
FIELD 4:
FIELD 5:
FIELD 6:
FIELD 7:

Because the first 10 characters of the fields "Address Line 1" and "Address Line 2" are the same, all fields after the "Address Line 1" field are changed to a generic field name.

If you switch to the List view in Works, you only see the following three fields. You are unable to access any of the data in the missing fields while in List view. 

   NAME:     COMPANY:      ADDRESS_LI:


To access the data again in List view, save the dBASE file in one of the following formats. Then, open the file in Works:

Works database Text and commas Text and tabs

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in Works for Windows version4.0 This problem was corrected in Works version 4.0a and later.

Additional query words: 3.00 3.00a 3.00b 4.00 2.00 2.00a 4.50 4.50a w_works data missing gone invisible fieldname fieldnames fields limit limitation truncated truncation short shortened cut

Keywords: kbprb kbfaq KB146234


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