                             Xbase64 Version 3.1.0
                             
                             
                             
WHAT IS IT?
-----------

Xbase64 is an xbase (i.e. dBase, FoxPro, etc.) compatible C++ class library 
originally by Gary Kunkel and others (see the AUTHORS file).

Xbase64 is useful for accessing data in legacy dBase 3 and 4 database files as
well as a general light-weight database engine.  It includes support for
DBF (dBase version 3 and 4) data files, NDX and NTX indexes, and DBT 
(dBase version 3 and 4).  It supports file and record locking under *nix
and Windows.


DIRECTORY LAYOUT
----------------

    /bin        contains various utility programs
    /examples   contains various test programs
    /html       contains the original xBase documentation in html format
    /xbase64    Xbase64 source and header files


BUILDING THE LIBRARY ON UNIX/LINUX
----------------------------------

XBase64 uses autoconf and libtool to manage the build process.

To configure the library for your specific system, run the "configure"
shell script as follows:

    ./configure
    
The configure script accepts the following options in addition to the
normal default options:

  --enable-debug               creates debugging code [default=no]
  --enable-shared              build shared libraries [default=yes]
  --enable-static              build static libraries [default=no]
  --with-gnu-ld                assume the C compiler uses GNU ld [default=no]
  --without-index-ndx          turn off .ndx index support 
  --without-index-ntx          turn off .ntx index support 
  --without-memo-fields        turn off memo fields support 
  --without-expressions        turn off expressions support 
  --without-xbase-locking      turn off XBase file locking 
  --without-realdelete         turn off XBase record deletion 
  --without-xbase-debug        turn off XBase specific debug 
  --without-largefile-support  turn off XBase largefile support

Once configured, execute make as follows to build the library:

    make
    
Once compiled (and assuming no errors occurred), use make to install the 
library, header files, and utilities as follows:

    make install
    
The default install directory is /usr/local.  


BUILDING THE LIBRARY ON WINDOWS
-------------------------------

The MINGW32 and CYGWIN compiler support didn't make the first cut to
Xbase64. They will be migrated forward in a future release of xbase64.
Any volunteers?

If using the MINGW32 GCC compiler package, use the makefile.g95 make files.
Edit bin/makefile.g95 xbase/makefile.g95 to change installation directories.

If using the CYGWIN environment, use the makefile.cyg make files (or fix
the autoconf/automake stuff to work correclty).  However, for some reason
(as yet undetermined) it seems to run very slowly when compiled with the
cygwin compiler (perhaps the file handing in the cygwin dll is just dog slow?).


BUILDING THE LIRARY WITH BORLAND 5.5
------------------------------------

There are batch files MAKEBCC.BAT which build the xbase libs for 
Borland C++ 5.5.



DOCUMENTATION
-------------

The documentation at this point consists of the original xBase documentation
(in the html directory).  It is still very useful as little has changed 
from the original library except bugfixes and a few enhancements.

We are working on incorporating comments into the source to allow
generation of reference documentation using the Doxygen document generator.
A small amount has been done already, but we hope to complete this effort
before the next release.


CONTACT
-------

Please email comments, bug reports, and patches to Gary Kunkel
xdb-dev@lists.sourceforge.net


