The table editor is designed only for basic record definition functions, but includes the means to define importable and exportable ASCII files, including fixed record lengths and conventional comma and quote-comma delimited files. The table editor also has a section for defining the Primary Key.

The text-file scripts are essentially a beefed up version of typical Visual Basic variable declaration statements. The program reads a text file with these VB statements, and converts this information into a corresponding Microsoft Access database file. For more information, see the page on User Defined Mnemonics.

Without registration, the program is limited to sixteen table definitions, eight database definitions and four user defined script mnemonics. The generated code is also restricted to data export code only.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: The registration option is NOT available to systems that do not have either Microsoft Access 95 or 97 installed. This program is NOT designed as an alternative to Microsoft Access, but as a tool to aid programmers in the design and development of their projects.

The import code uses the same method for reading delimited files and fixed length records. Delimited files use a one-size-fits-all scheme for breaking out the individual fields. This allows for a single array for all tables regardless of the number of elements, and all elements are checked for leading and trailing quotes, which are stripped off before writing the element into the database.

Note that when importing text to boolean fields, the specific content of the importing data is not relevant to the result. "T", "True", "Y", "Yes", and "1" all result in True, while "F", "False", "N", "No" and "0" all result in False. Actually, any word beginning with "T" or "Y" results in a True, while all other characters are False.

The export code is much more reliant on specifics, since the output needs to meet the specific criteria of the target, not making any assumptions as to the flexibility of that target. For this purpose, the output files can be either comma delimited, quote and comma delimited, or standard CSV files where the string and memo data are in quotes, but the numerics and dates are without quotes.

The Boolean data type can be exported as either: "Y" or "N"; "Yes" or "No"; "T" or "F"; "True" or "False"; "1" or "0". This is set up in the table definition section of the program. In either case, the Boolean data is treated like string data, and for CSV formats, is enclosed in quotes.

When working with fixed length records, a public variable named "RecordSize" is made available for controlling the data length of each record. If "RecordSize" is zero, then the data output is left as is, where the record size is dependant entirely on the collective field lengths alone. If "RecordSize" is less than the resulting output data length, the output record size is truncated to the specified length. If "RecordSize" is greater than the resulting output data length, then the output record is padded with spaces to the specified length.

All of the code modules generated using the Urthman's MDB Construction Kit result in the same collection of public subroutines and functions for use in your project.

Registered users will receive periodic notification of updates as they might occur via Email. This will continue for the duration of the version 1.x life cycle.

Note: John Stanley Enterprises reserves the right to refuse to issue licenses for nicknames and handles, and most likely will. Site licenses will be issued to real names only, and multiple licenses can and will be issued to company or corporate names.