How to interpret the language driver name in a dBase (.dbf) file?

Question

I opened a dBase (.dbf) file in a hex editor. See below. I circled the field containing the "language driver name". How do I interpret that field? Is the field a string? If it is a string, then why does it contain a bunch of null (hex 0) characters?

In a "real" dbase III file (as I assume from hte magic byte 03, other versions use other values) there is no name for a "language driver name". your first field in the table simple has the name "name", it´s a character field "C" and its 254 bytes long — nabuchodonossor

infused infused · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-23T20:55:46

Most dbase files do not contain the language driver name. You'll want to use the language codepage byte at offset 29 instead. Possible hex values along with their corresponding Windows codepage are listed below:

'01' => 'cp437'       # U.S. MS-DOS
'02' => 'cp850'       # International MS-DOS
'03' => 'cp1252'      # Windows ANSI
'08' => 'cp865'       # Danish OEM
'09' => 'cp437'       # Dutch OEM
'0a' => 'cp850'       # Dutch OEM*
'0b' => 'cp437'       # Finnish OEM
'0d' => 'cp437'       # French OEM
'0e' => 'cp850'       # French OEM*
'0f' => 'cp437'       # German OEM
'10' => 'cp850'       # German OEM*
'11' => 'cp437'       # Italian OEM
'12' => 'cp850'       # Italian OEM*
'13' => 'cp932'       # Japanese Shift-JIS
'14' => 'cp850'       # Spanish OEM*
'15' => 'cp437'       # Swedish OEM
'16' => 'cp850'       # Swedish OEM*
'17' => 'cp865'       # Norwegian OEM
'18' => 'cp437'       # Spanish OEM
'19' => 'cp437'       # English OEM (Britain)
'1a' => 'cp850'       # English OEM (Britain)*
'1b' => 'cp437'       # English OEM (U.S.)
'1c' => 'cp863'       # French OEM (Canada)
'1d' => 'cp850'       # French OEM*
'1f' => 'cp852'       # Czech OEM
'22' => 'cp852'       # Hungarian OEM
'23' => 'cp852'       # Polish OEM
'24' => 'cp860'       # Portuguese OEM
'25' => 'cp850'       # Portuguese OEM*
'26' => 'cp866'       # Russian OEM
'37' => 'cp850'       # English OEM (U.S.)*
'40' => 'cp852'       # Romanian OEM
'4d' => 'cp936'       # Chinese GBK (PRC)
'4e' => 'cp949'       # Korean (ANSI/OEM)
'4f' => 'cp950'       # Chinese Big5 (Taiwan)
'50' => 'cp874'       # Thai (ANSI/OEM)
'57' => 'cp1252'      # ANSI
'58' => 'cp1252'      # Western European ANSI
'59' => 'cp1252'      # Spanish ANSI
'64' => 'cp852'       # Eastern European MS-DOS
'65' => 'cp866'       # Russian MS-DOS
'66' => 'cp865'       # Nordic MS-DOS
'67' => 'cp861'       # Icelandic MS-DOS
'6a' => 'cp737'       # Greek MS-DOS (437G)
'6b' => 'cp857'       # Turkish MS-DOS
'6c' => 'cp863'       # French-Canadian MS-DOS
'78' => 'cp950'       # Taiwan Big 5
'79' => 'cp949'       # Hangul (Wansung)
'7a' => 'cp936'       # PRC GBK
'7b' => 'cp932'       # Japanese Shift-JIS
'7c' => 'cp874'       # Thai Windows/MS-DOS
'86' => 'cp737'       # Greek OEM
'87' => 'cp852'       # Slovenian OEM
'88' => 'cp857'       # Turkish OEM
'c8' => 'cp1250'      # Eastern European Windows
'c9' => 'cp1251'      # Russian Windows
'ca' => 'cp1254'      # Turkish Windows
'cb' => 'cp1253'      # Greek Windows
'cc' => 'cp1257'      # Baltic Windows

How to interpret the language driver name in a dBase (.dbf) file?

1 Answers