NAME

       gdbdump - dump HP 100LX database into ASCII format

SYNOPSIS

       gdbdump [-noqswm] file

DESCRIPTION

       gdbdump exports the contents of an HP 100LX database into an ASCII form.  file is the name
       of the 100LX database to read; the  results  are  written  to  the  terminal  and  can  be
       redirected  or  piped as needed.  The output format is suitable for input to many database
       packages as well as to gdbload(1).

   Options
       gdbdump recognizes the following options:

              -n     Suppress the first line of the output, which normally contains the names  of
                     all  of  the  database  fields.   Note that if this option is specified, the
                     output is not compatible with  gdbload(1).   However,  this  option  may  be
                     needed  for  compatibility  with  other database programs trying to read the
                     output.

              -o     Omit note fields from the output.  Note fields are included by default.

              -q     Suppress warning messages.

              -s     Write special characters (character codes 128-254,  inclusive)  directly  to
                     the output.  The default is to represent such characters in \nnn notation.

              -w     Wrap  long  lines.  For some databases, the output line length can be larger
                     than some programs (notably vi(1)) can handle, especially if records contain
                     long  notes.   This  option  wraps  each output line at about 75 characters,
                     marking the end of lines to be continued with a backslash  (\).   gdbload(1)
                     understands this format.

              -m     Write  multi-line  string  (i.e.  note)  fields  on multiple lines. Thus the
                     quoted string will span newlines. Without this option, newlines  in  strings
                     will be output as \r\n sequences, and the complete string will be subject to
                     line wrapping if specified by the -w option.

   Output Format Description
       The output of this program is an ASCII text file which starts with a line containing field
       names  (unless  -n  was  specified)  and  is  followed  by one line for each record of the
       database.  Note that any of these lines  may  be  split  into  multiple  lines  if  -w  is
       specified, and that newlines in strings may cause further splitting if specified by the -m
       option.  Each "logical" line contains all of the fields of the database, in the same order
       in  which  their  field  names  appeared  on the first line of the output.  The fields are
       separated by commas.

       Exactly how each field appears in the output depends on its type.  Text  fields,  category
       fields,  and note fields appear with the contents inside quote marks (").  Quote marks and
       backslashes within the text of the field are escaped by preceding them  with  a  backslash
       (\).  Newlines are printed as \n and carriage returns as \r, unless the -m option is used.
       Non-printing or non-ASCII characters as \nnn, where nnn is an octal character code.   (See
       the description of the -s flag, above.)

       Number  fields  appear  as  they  do  in  the  database.  Date fields appear in the format
       YYYYMMDD; for example, August 15, 1993 would appear as 19930815.  Time  fields  appear  in
       the format HHMM, where HH is in the range 00-23.

       Radio buttons and check boxes appear as 1 if selected, 0 otherwise.

       All other field types, including application-defined types, are omitted from the output.

       This output format can be used as input to gdbload(1).

WARNINGS

       gdbdump  cannot  handle the application-defined records and fields in HP 100LX Appointment
       Book and World Time databases.  Running this program on such databases will  give  useful,
       but incomplete, output.

       Records are printed in the order stored in the file, i.e., randomly.

       This  program  cannot  handle  password-protected  databases.   Attempts to dump password-
       protected databases will have unpredictable results.

AUTHOR

       gdbdump was written by Steven Roth, stever@cup.hp.com, and is  being  maintained  by  Arne
       Christensen, arc@pine.dk.  Contact the latter for bug reports, enhancement requests, or to
       get a copy of the source code.

DISCLAIMER

       This program is released into the public domain and neither the author nor the  maintainer
       place  any  restrictions on its use.  We make no warranties or guarantees for this program
       and you use it at your own risk.  This program is supplied by us  personally  and  not  by
       Hewlett-Packard Co. or Pine Tree Systems, which incur no obligations pertaining to it.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

       Many thanks to Andy Gryc for publishing the details of the database file formats!

SEE ALSO

       gdbload(1).