What about writing the data to a FileStream on the Palm? It is then
stored as a file encapsulated as a PDB, and there are tools (like par)
to convert that to a standard file on the PC.
Hi Logan,
This looks to be a reasonable idea. I was thinking of this when it
seemed like the filestream was a viable idea - but what would be the
persistent storage file format? It does not appear that you can have a
bunch of text files sitting in the Palm - or CAN you? Again - I AM a
newbie to the Palm world. It seems like everything persistent has to
be a database or an application.
I agree a conduit is cleaner once written, but if the goal is to
find the absolute simplest way to get the data there, to me that's
the answer. Or at least it's no worse than trying to parse a PDB
file yourself.
The parse-the-PDB idea was the first approach. But the thought was to
skip that intermediate step as it would require the creation and
maintenance of another tool which would have to be executed on the
files before they were imported into something like FileMaker or Excel.
It may be that I'm trying to do something in a way they just don't
want you to do things - and the old saw, "If it don't fit - don't force
it", may apply here.
There is a tool called pdb2csv which will spit out a
comma-delimited-textfile from a PDB file - but again, it's another tool
that has to come before the file can be imported. So, for now, I'm
trying to come up with the plan that has data being acquired by the
Palm, uploaded via HotSync and is then immediately ready for import as
XML.
I assume you can't programmatically make these other programs (like
Excel or FileMaker) import things, though I could be wrong.
Well - it IS possible to write a plug-in for those two apps - but I
don't think there's anything that exists that's on a shelf somewhere
that'll do that. PLEASE prove me wrong! I'll go buy a copy.
Thanks for your generous assistance in evaluating what is the
situation. It has helped me think more about the problem in different
ways and I feel like I've gotten alot of good help from you and others
on this list.
Best Wishes,
Lance Drake
--
For information on using the PalmSource Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe,
please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
