Message-ID: <38FA1C5C.E2447EA3@panix.com>
Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2000 16:02:36 -0400
From: Max Pyziur <pyz@panix.com>
Organization: BRAMA - Gateway Ukraine
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: pgsql-admin@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Database conversion
References: <38F1E3AE.DEFC331E@webgadgets.co.uk>
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Steve Murphy wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Does anyone know of any conversion programs that will either convert an
> MS Access database file to a Postresql database or from a Filemaker Pro
> database file to a Postresql database for the Red Hat Linux OS?
> 
> Any help or educated guesses of where to start looking would be
> extremely welcome.

Apologies that this reply is coming possibly a bit late.

My experience is essentially limited to Postgres, Informix, and
Foxpro, the last in which I haven't done any development in a while.

General procedure that I know of is:
1 - dump the schema of one to a file and tweak it so that it conforms
to the standards of the target database server
2 - dump the data to a pipe-delimited text file
3 - use the schema from the source database program to create a
database in the target database program/server
4 - import the pipe-delimited data.

In the case of Informix and Postgres, both have utilities (dbschema
and pg_dump with the -s flag, respectively) which allow you to output
a databases schema to stdout or a file.  I know that with Foxpro 3.0
there was some sort of schema utility included somewhere.  Informix
has an SQL command called UNLOAD which allows you to dump data to
pipe-delimited formats; pg_dump -a dumps the data in postgres; COPY in
the postgres monitor gives you a little more control as to the format
of data dump.  Informix's syntax is a cleaner implementation in this
regard, though.  Postgres's pg_dump is great, though, for backing up a
whole database w/ schema and restoring it.

So I only gave you half an answer since I didn't address your MS
Access or Filemaker pro issues.  I suspect though you can do exports
and control the format in some way.
 
> Thanx, Steve.

-- 
Max Pyziur                                     BRAMA - Gateway Ukraine
pyz@brama.com                                  http://www.brama.com/