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A client recently approached me with a request to make their database
available online. No problem I said, as the Mac has a wealth of database
solutions for web delivery. That was until I saw their 'database' which was
in reality an erratically formatted PC WordPerfect file, with over 5,000
'records'. Dates were in many different formats, and fields were not in a
regular order. It was impossible to use this data straight off, as no
program in existence could have made sense of it.
With the help of MacPerl, the file was eventually filtered, normalized and two files of neatly formatted data came out at the other end, ready for delivery on the web. (Incidentally, the web database solution was also written in MacPerl.)
Lindsay Davies |