Accpacc system useless for a move to the web ?

Hello folks,

I'm a consultant for a music distributor and they recently made the bad 
move to remove their OS2 Server and Windows front ends on all of their 
systems and rebuild a whole new accounting and product management 
system...in AccPac for DOS ;(

I was wondering what is your opinion regarding the portability of such a 
system if they ever wish to have a Web site with direct link to their 
database. The product database is accessed by AccPac and updated by 
users everywhere on the network. There is a series of dbf files (Main 
Products, Category Codes, Labels, etc.) that can be linked together in a 
relational system. There is no SQL database, and this is my main concern.

I'm sure there are third party softwares capable of accessing dbf files 
through a web server, but wouldn't it much more simple to have plain SQL ?
And if the answer is yes, is the current system (AccPac-DOS prehistoric 
configuration) to be avoided by all means ? (if we think about the future).

---
I have another question, which is not related to rdb development and the
www, but I thought some of you might be able to help. Some of the clients
of this company are asking for a listing of the products database on
diskettes. Since we can't give them the whole products database, a query
has to be made on the dbf file first to select specific fields. And this
is a real headache, as the file is more than 45 megs. It used to be a SQL
file, quite easy to access through Access or any other software. 

But right now, if we want to query on it, we first have to import it to 
our querying software, which takes forever, and then query, and then 
output it to another huge file.

If you know of some simpler ways of doing this (like querying the dbf 
file directly with some executable ??), please let me know, I'll be 
forever in your debt :)


Thanks for your attention and long live to the www-rdb list !

Cheers,
-Alain

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Alain Azzam
VRS Consulting                                E-mail : vrs@nstn.ns.ca
1967 Raymond, Laval QC  H7S 1R3                           vrs@vir.com
Canada

                  Phone : 514-668-6023  Fax : 514-668-6694
                  ----------------------------------------
                     " I've got a funny feeling, they
                       have plastic in the afterlife..."

                                          Beck, One Foot in the Grave

Received on Thursday, 26 September 1996 13:14:04 UTC