Article ID: 105834
Article Last Modified on 10/16/2002
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Visual FoxPro 3.0 Standard Edition
- Microsoft Visual FoxPro 5.0 Standard Edition
- Microsoft Visual FoxPro 5.0a
- Microsoft Visual FoxPro 6.0 Professional Edition
- Microsoft FoxPro 2.0
- Microsoft FoxPro 2.6 for MS-DOS
- Microsoft FoxPro 2.6a Standard Edition
- Microsoft FoxPro 2.6 Standard Edition
- Microsoft FoxPro 2.6a Standard Edition
- Microsoft FoxPro 2.6a Professional Edition for Macintosh
This article was previously published under Q105834
SYMPTOMS
When attempting to append a Data Interchange Format (DIF) file, the following error message is returned:
RESOLUTION
Perform one of the following:
- If the software that generated the .DIF file supports any of the file types supported in FoxPro, use one of them instead. For a list of supported file types see the APPEND FROM command in the "Microsoft FoxPro Language Reference" L3-193. FoxPro can also open dBASE files directly. If this is not possible, you will need to use Low-Level file I/O; see Chapter 10 of the "Developers Guide." -or-
- Reverse the Vector and Tuple values.
DIF files are essentially text files that contain various statements defining the data items. Among the data in a .DIF file are items labeled 'VECTORS' and 'TUPLES'. Reverse the values for the Vectors and Tuples.
For example, here is a sample Microsoft Excel .DIF file that FoxPro can't import:VECTORS
0,3
TUPLES
0,4Modify the file so that it looks like the following:
VECTORS
0,4
TUPLES
0,3
STATUS
Microsoft is researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.
MORE INFORMATION
NOTE: This has been reported to occur with .DIF files created by applications other than Microsoft Excel.
Steps to Reproduce Problem
- In a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, fill cells A1 to A10 with the string 'abcd' or the numeric 1234. Save the file in DIF format as SHEET1.DIF.
- Create a single-field table structure in FoxPro, and define that field as either character or numeric with the default width (per the data type entered in step 1).
- Issue the following command at the command window:
APPEND FROM sheet1.dif TYPE DIF
For more information about the way Microsoft Excel saves .DIF files, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
60997 Excel and Lotus DIF File Differences
Additional query words: DIF APPEND FROM FAR errmsg err msg xl kbvfp300 kbvfp500 kbvfp600
Keywords: kbbug kbinterop KB105834