rdm-convert

RDM Legacy DDL/DBD conversion tool

Synopsis

rdm-convert [OPTION]... dbname[.ddl|.dbd]

Description

rdm-convert is a command-line utility that converts a database definition file (.ddl) or a compiled dictionary file (.dbd) for a legacy RDM database.

If the legacy file includes features that aren't supported by RDM 14, rdm-convert will terminate with an error or ignore them with warnings.

Options

-h, --help	Display this usage information
--version	Display the version information
-q, --quiet	Quiet mode. No information will be displayed
-B, --no-banner	Do not display the banner
--stdout=filespec	Redirect stdout to the specified filespec
--stderr=filespec	Redirect stderr to the specified filespec
-p, --preprocess	Evaluate preprocessor directives
--sed	Generate a SED conversion script. Use this script to modify legacy RDM source code to use the new struct definitions for RDM.
--sed-d	Generate a SED conversion script with the DDLP -d option. Use this script to modify legacy RDM source code to use the new struct definitions for RDM.
dbname[.ddl | .dbd]	Legacy database definition file (.ddl) or legacy dictionary file (.dbd). If no extension is specified, a dictionary file with an extension of '.ddl' will be used.

Usage Examples

The usage example assumes that bookshop.ddl contains the following database definition.

database bookshop {
    data    file "bookshop.d0x" contains author;
    key     file "bookshop.k0x" contains last_name;
    key     file "bookshop.k1x" contains yob_gender_key;
    vardata file "bookshop.v0x" contains short_bio;

    record author {
        unique key char last_name[14];
        char            full_name[26];
        char            gender[2];
        int16_t         yr_born;
        int16_t         yr_died;
        varchar         short_bio[217];

        compound key yob_gender_key {
            yr_born;
            gender;
        }
    }
}

Generating an RDM 14 database definition file

You can generate an RDM 14 database definition file (.sdl) from a legacy database definition file (.ddl) by running rdm-convert as follows:

$ rdm-convert bookshop.ddl

The RDM 14 database definition file named bookshop.sdl will be created and place in the current working directory. The definition looks like this.

CREATE TABLE author
(
    last_name CHAR(13) UNIQUE KEY  NOT NULL,
    full_name CHAR(25) DEFAULT "" NOT NULL,
    gender CHAR(1) DEFAULT "" NOT NULL,
    yr_born INT16 DEFAULT 0 NOT NULL,
    yr_died INT16 DEFAULT 0 NOT NULL,
    short_bio CHAR(216) DEFAULT "" NOT NULL,

    CONSTRAINT yob_gender_key KEY  (
        yr_born ASC,
        gender ASC
    )
);

Modify legacy RDM source code to use the new struct definitions

If you have sed installed, you can modify a legacy RDM source file 'mySource.c' to use the new struct definitions for bookshop.ddl as follows:

$ rdm-convert --sed bookshop.ddl
$ sed -I -f bookshop.sed mySource.c