Unpacking and converting a packed database
To unpack a Quanvert Text database, you use qvtr. This runs the program qsj to join any split files which make up the database, and then runs qvtrans to uncompress and unpack the packed file, and make any conversions in file formats that are necessary.
Before you run qvtr
1 Go to the directory containing the packed files you have just transferred or loaded.
2 Create a directory to contain the files which qvtrans will create. This is the directory which will become the new database directory in which users can run Quanvert Text. It can be a subdirectory of the current directory or a separate directory elsewhere on the system. If you do not create a new directory, qvtrans puts the database files in the current directory.
3 If you want to use Quanvert Text’s subdirectories facility, create a
numdir.qv file containing the number of subdirectories required. qvtr will then create its files in the given number of subdirectories. For more information about storing databases in subdirectories, see
Storing variables in subdirectories.
Running qvtr
Type:
qvtr [–p file_name] [–d directory_name]
where file_name is the name of the packed database, and directory_name is the name of the directory in which to place the unpacked files. If you are already attached to the database directory you can omit this parameter.
More information
qvtr has two stages:
▪First it runs qsj to join any component files which exist.
▪Then it passes the joined file to qvtrans for unpacking.
When it starts, qsj checks to see whether a file already exists with the database name you have given. If so, its assumes that the component files have already been joined and therefore stops. If there is no such file, qsj calculates the name of the index file from the name given on the command line using the same rules as for splitting the database.
Therefore, if you type:
qvtr -p mydatabase.jan
and there is no file with this name, qsj looks for an index file called mydataba.jzz.
If qsj cannot find the index file, it will not run. If the file does exist, qsj joins the files named in the index in the order they are named. If any of the files are missing from the directory, the run fails.
As each file is unpacked, its name is echoed on your screen.
See also