raw tape file extract

Posted December 1st, 2008 by phil

I am not sure if I am in the right forum.

I have a file about 70MB that was extracted from a old tape and want to extract the data file.
I am not sure which program to us.

It seems that the data extractor, also the data parser for micro focus cobol.

Here are some info I can see from the file in raw hex editor:

===
Data General Corp Aviion System
Micro Focus COBOL/2
DG-UX OS ver 4.20 PIC X 08
The backup is not one of the cross platform archives like cpio or tar.

Looks like a backup of software and source code developed with a Micro Focus C compliler.

=============

Thanks in advance.

Phil

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RE: raw tape file extract

On December 1st, 2008 jterrell said:

Hi Phil,

From your description, it sounds as if you have a Micro Focus COBOL data file, so you probably want to try the Data Parser for Micro Focus COBOL.

- Jo

no .DAT no .IDX

On December 5th, 2008 phil said:

Hi Jo,

Bear with me.

I have only one tape raw data file.

I do not have the .DAT and .IDX file.
Also I am not sure which/what .DDF file I should use.

Thanks for your concern and help.

Phil

RE: no .DAT no .IDX

On December 5th, 2008 jterrell said:

Hi Phil,

Micro Focus COBOL data files don't have to have a .DAT file extension. The vendor who built the application could have chosen virtually anything for the extension. Same applies to the index file; i.e., it may have any extension, and you will need to get the index file off the same system from which the data file originated. Hopefully, it is on the tape. If it is not, you may need to use the Data Parser for Binary (rather than the Data Parser for Micro Focus COBOL) to open and parse the data file.

As for a dictionary file -- it can also have virtually any file extension -- you may or may not have it, and it may not even reside on the tape or the system. Many vendors wrote the user interface such that it "translated" the binary data through "programming" so the dictionary file(s) did not have to be installed along with the application. If this is true, and you don't have the dictionary file(s), you will need to parse the records using the built-in manual parser inside the Data Parser.

- Jo