Documentation and Features for Visual Basic's 3.0 Data Manager (110723)

SUMMARY

You can run the DATAMGR.EXE Data Manager program as follows:

Choose Data Manager from the Window menu in Visual Basic, or
Run the DATAMGR.EXE program from the File Manager in Windows.

The complete documentation for using Data Manager is found in Data Manager's Help menu. You can also run the DATAMGR.HLP Help file from File Manager in Windows. Visual Basic provides no printed documentation for Data Manager. Instead, you can print the topics from the Help menu.

MORE INFORMATION

The DATAMGR.EXE Data Manager program provided with Visual Basic has the following features:

Open an existing database that has one of the following formats:
- Microsoft Access
- FoxPro version 2.0 or 2.5
- dBase III or dBase IV
- Paradox version 3.x
- BTRIEVE
Create a new database in Microsoft Access format (.MDB)
Create new tables in a database
Create an index in a table
Add fields to a table
Modify table data
Delete an existing table
Compact a database
Repair a database

The Data Manager gives you a subset of the features found in Microsoft Access for Windows. Data Manager, Visual Basic, and Microsoft Access all have the same native database format, an .MDB file. A single .MDB file contains the database structure as well as the data itself.

Introduction from Data Manager's Help Menu Topic

The Visual Basic Data Manager allows Visual Basic users to create new databases (.MDB format) and examine or map the structure of existing external databases in a variety of formats. Formats that you can either create or modify with the Data Manager are shown below:

   Database Format         Create     Modify
   -----------------------------------------

   Microsoft Access 1.0     Yes        Yes
   Microsoft Access 1.1     Yes        Yes
   Paradox 3.0 and 3.5       No        Yes
   dBASE III and IV          No        Yes
   FoxPro 2.0 and 2.5        No        Yes
   Btrieve                   No        Yes

Visual Basic shares its database engine with Microsoft Access, so databases created with Visual Basic or the Data Manager can be manipulated using Microsoft Access. In addition, databases created with Microsoft Access can be manipulated using Visual Basic and the Data Manager. Throughout the Visual Basic documentation, databases created with that engine are referred to as Visual Basic databases.

For additional information on using external databases, see the file EXTERNAL.TXT or BTRIEVE.TXT supplied with Visual Basic.

Many external databases exist as directories on your disk. To create databases in these formats, use the File Manager to create a directory that will become the database. Once the database directory is created, use the Data Manager to add tables and indexes, which become files in this directory.