[Allegro] Structure of .ald file ?

[Sylvain Machefert]

Hi,
thanks for these informations. Export to external format seems to be what I
need. I've installed a recent demo version (allegro-C DEMO V28.8) and was
able to export demo database like this, it's what I need. But I've tried to
go through the menus of my user interface (which looks like this :
http://twitpic.com/2i1xhp ) and couldn't find anything allowing me to export
(except the iso 2709 export I had already seen).

But in my allegro directory I've many E-*.apr files. Not E-1.apr but things
like E-GI13.APR, E-W.APR ...

I also have many .exe and .bat. do you think there's a way to export using a
command line tool ?

If someone has some ideas I'm still interested, I think I've gone through
all ideas I can think of.

Sylvain

2010/8/25 Thomas Berger <ThB at gymel.com>

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> Hello Sylvain,
>
> > Hello all (sorry for writing in english but I swear it's much better !),
> > one library in our network is going to join the main system and I need to
> > get their datas into our ILS. The librarian has sent to me all its
> allegro
> > directory (binary + katalog). The first thing I'd like is to extract ISBN
> > from this catalog to match them against our ILS. It seems I can find them
> in
> > the *.ald file containing my database using a regexp like \x0087
> (\d*)\x00,
> > am I right ? Is there a better way ?
>
> Right in a sense.
>
> The .ald files are the binary storage format for the bibliographic records,
> you'll have to pay attention that they also contain "deleted" records whose
> storage is waiting to be recycled. "Deleted" not in the sense of actively
> deleted: Storage is simply invalidated because records grew and hat to
> be stored elsewhere in the file.
>
>
> > Then I'd like to be able to match records without isbn using a key like
> > "Title / Author / Date" for example. But with the .ald file I can't
> > understand how to do (some records seem to be on two lines for example,
> all
> > records don't start with same characters ...). That's why I tried to
> export
> > in iso2709, a format I know, but all datas aren't exported (ISBN for
> > examples aren't in the .iso file). And this file does'nt seem to be real
> > iso2709 file (delimiters used aren't the officiel iso2709 delimiters). To
> > export the datas, I started Allegro (the interface says "Allegro-Routinen
> > (Version 18) / Stand: 13.8.1999", it's running under dos), then selected
> "9
> > Besondere (und lokale) Einstellungen / Sonstiges", then "Datenexport nach
> > ISO 2709".
>
> There seems to be an added user interface (menus etc.) uncommon to me.
> The correct version number might be "Version 16"? Your quote of field "87"
> for ISBNs shows that the internal format of the records is (or is derived
> from) the common "$A" format, cf. http://www.allegro-c.de/doku/form2004/
> (there might be an english digest for it somewhere)
>
> ISO2701 per se is just an encoding for fielded data, commonly employed for
> MARC21 or UNIMARC, to a certain extend also for the german MAB format.
> Since the export you tried not even exports ISBN numbers to the "ISO 2701"
> (BTW: did you check the file itself? It might simply have been exported to
> a different field than your understanding of / your tools handling ISO 2701
> expected: MAB 540 corresponds to MARC21 020 and UNIMARC 011 for the ISBN)
> it is probably not worth investigating any further with respect to what
> kind of export really hides behind "Datenexport nach ISO 2709".
>
>
> > If someone can help me to find a better way to export my datas or extract
> > datas from the .ald file, it would help me a lot !
>
> To get *all* valid data out of the database you should probably look for an
> export in allegro-C's "external format": Maybe your user interface permits
> a more freely configurable export giving you the choice to select "E-1"
> (.apr)
> as export ruleset (Parameterdatei): This would give you all records in a
> flat text file, each line containing a datafield prefixed by the field
> number
> #kkf. Character coding would be according to the internal one of the
> database,
> probably CP850.
>
> Greetings
> Thomas Berger
>
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