Re: RE: Convert Filemaker Pro db to Postgresql db

On Monday 09 April 2001 10:49 am, Scott Gritton wrote:
> Hi Joel,
> I'm not a FM user so I actually don't know about its capabilities.
> I've been given the assignment to convert our FM bug database over to
> Postgresql and was hoping that there was a tool out 'there' that could
> accomplish this without me having to spend a lot of time on the process of
> conversion.
> I'm just starting to script with Python and will be looking into how I
> might be able to do the conversion that way if I can't find any easier way.
> Thanks for your reply!

There are basically 4 aspects to a FM database to think about:

1) Field definintions
2) The data
3) User Interface
4) Scripts for functionality

Being both a FM and Postgres user, I'm familiar with how both work, although
I've not yet tried to convert a FM database into postgres, because I
invariably use them for different things.

Obviously, the UI is toast, kiss it goodbye. As are the scripts - FM
scripting language is very idiosyncratic, and doesn't really correspond well
to anything much else out there. It also directly depends on the UI - which
you've had to kiss goodbye.

There is no automated way that I know of to generate pg tables based on FM
field definitions. FM does export to .dbf format, so that if there are ways
to convert .dbf files to SQL, that's one way to go. Otherwise, I think its a
manual task.

In terms of the data - writing a perl or python script to import data
exported (in delimited form) from FM to pg is certainly not to hard a task (I
have a perl script that I've used, if anyone wants it.)

Hope this is helpful.

Michelle
------------
Michelle Murrain, Ph.D.
President
Norwottuck Technology Resources
mpm@norwottuck.com
http://www.norwottuck.com