Hi folks, I just inherited a DataPerfect HR application. It maintains a
bunch of employee data that are unfortunately keyed by social security
number. I've been tasked both with trying to replace the SSN by a
synthetic key or some sort of acrostic, and also with writing a new
version of the application using a relational database for storage.

First things first, am I interpeting the files comprising the
application properly? There seem to me:

APP.STR - metadata about the panels and fields, maybe also the reports?
APP.IND - primary key data for the panels, maybe also fixed width field
data?
APP.TXX - variable length data for the panels

then there are a bunch of APP files with arbitrary extensions, e.g.
APP.EME, which contain subpanel data, in this case, emergency contact
information. Correct so far? Am I missing any interesting files?

Dumping the data in order to bootstrap a new application seems
relatively straightforward. From each of the two main panels, I hit
CTRL-F5 and export the data in "DOS Delimited Text" format and then have
at it in the language of my choice. Problem is, there are 6 or 8 files
with the arbitrary extensions which I think contain subpanel data. How
do I dump these data? CTRL-F5 does not seem to work when focus is on a
popup subpanel.

Changing the SSN looks to be a tricky endeavor since it seems to be the
primary key for the employees table. I could certainly dump the data for
the main panel, change the SSNs in the dump, wipe out the database, and
then reimport the data, but it looks like I'd lose the subpanel data in
the process. Can anyone suggest an avenue of attack for this problem?

DP appears to be version 2.3, running on WinXP, in case that's relevant.
Thanks in advance for any tips.

- donald
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