Migrate from an older version of RDM

In most cases, you should be able to migrate your database from an older version of RDM (3.21 or later) to RDM 15.1 without modifications. Since RDM 12 is capable of reading a database created with an older version of RDM ("a pre-RDM 12 database"), provided the DBD and database files have been moved into the correct directory, the rdmexport utility for RDM 12 can be used to directly export the content of your pre-RDM 12 database.

Install RDM 12.0

The first step needed is for RDM 12.0 to be installed to the system.

If you need a copy of RDM 12.0, please contact: [email protected].

Use the Database Dictionary (DBD) As Is

To move the DBD and database files from your old version of RDM into your RDM 12 environment, take the following steps:

  1. Determine your RDM 12 document root directory (e.g. "C:\Raima\RDM\12.0").
  2. Create a directory under the document root to match the name of the database. For example, if your database is named sales, the directory will be "C:\Raima\RDM\12.0\sales".
  3. Copy the DBD and database files from your old version of RDM into the newly-created directory.

You are now ready to export the data. Proceed to the "Export the existing data" section of this migration guide.

Modify the pre-RDM 12 Database

If you are unable to export the data from a pre-RDM 12 database by taking the steps above, it will be necessary to convert your database to the format compatible with RDM 12 first. The following two options are available.

Use dbexp/dbimp

RDM 12 provides a set of utilities, dbexp and dbimp, to export and import data. Unlike rdmexport, dbexp/dbimp can only be used to export or import data in RDM 12 or older.

To use dbexp and dbimp to convert an old database to an RDM 12 database, refer to the Import / Export Support section of the RDM 12 Documentation.

Use dbrev

Alternatively, you can use the dbrev utility provided with RDM 12 to convert your pre-RDM 12 database into RDM 12 format.

To convert a pre-RDM 12 database into RDM 12 format, take the following steps:

  1. Copy the original database into the RDM 12 document root as described in Use the DBD as is above.
  2. Rename the original database. This involves two steps:
    1. Rename the database dictionary (DBD), e.g. from dbname.dbd to dbnameold.dbd.
    2. Rename the database directory, e.g. from <document root>/dbname to <document root>/dbnameold.
  3. Copy the DDL file from the original version to what will become the RDM 12 version of the DDL.
  4. Edit the RDM 12 DDL file to remove the defunct features as necessary.
  5. Compile the RDM 12 DDL file using the ddlp utility as follows.
$ ddlp dbname.ddl

Initialize the new RDM 12 database by executing the initdb utility as follows.

$ initdb -y dbname

Execute dbrev as follows to complete the conversion.

$ dbrev dbnameold dbname

The new RDM 12 database, dbname, should contain all the data from the original pre-RDM 12 database. Proceed to the "Export the Existing Data" section of this migration guide.

Source Code Changes

A number of functions available for older versions of RDM were discontinued in RDM 12 and later. Semantics of several existing functions and structures changed as well. For a list of the discontinued functions and semantic changes, refer to the Source Code Changes section of this migration guide.