Getting Started > DDF Files

One of the ways that programmers have used to describe the structure of Btrieve Tables is by using an external Dictionary.

This dictionary consists of three (or optionally five) tables with the following names:

File.ddf List of filenames and file locations

Field.ddf List of fieldnames, lenth and type

Index.ddf List of index segments

Comment.ddf (Optional) description of fields & files

FieldExt.ddf (Optional) extended field types

VO2Btrieve has a number of classes designed to work together with these dictionary files. These classes allow you to open files based on the defintion in the dictionary. There are also some support functions designed to work with DDF Files. These functions are: Bt_ReadDDFieldInfo

Bt_ReadDDIndexInfo

Bt_FMap

Bt_Atables

Bt_DictOpen

Bt_DictClose

Bt_DictGet