dbfread

A lightweight parser for DBF (dBase/Visual FoxPro) files with memo support, written in TypeScript.

Features

• 🚀 Lightweight: No external dependencies, pure TypeScript/JavaScript
• 📄 Memo Support: Automatically detects and parses associated .fpt memo files
• 🔧 TypeScript: Full TypeScript support with type definitions
• 📊 Multiple Data Types: Supports all common DBF field types
• 🎯 Simple API: Easy-to-use function with minimal configuration
• 🧪 Well Tested: Comprehensive test suite

Installation

npm install dbfread

Quick Start

import { parseDBF } from 'dbfread';

// Parse a DBF file
const records = parseDBF('./path/to/your/file.dbf');

// Each record is a plain object with field names as keys
console.log(records[0]);
// Output: { id: 1, name: "John Doe", age: 30, active: true }

API Reference

parseDBF(dbfPath: string, encoding?: string): Record<string, any>[]

Parses a DBF file and returns an array of records.

Parameters:

• dbfPath (string): Path to the .dbf file
• encoding (optional string): Text encoding (defaults to Windows-1252)

Returns:

• Array of record objects where keys are field names

Supported Field Types

| Type | Description | JavaScript Type | |------|-------------|-----------------| | C | Character/String | string | | N | Numeric | number | | F | Float | number | | D | Date | Date | | L | Logical/Boolean | boolean | | M | Memo | string | | I | Integer | number | | B | Binary/Double | number | | Y | Currency | number | | T | DateTime | Date | | O | Double | number |

Examples

Basic Usage

import { parseDBF } from 'dbfread';

const records = parseDBF('./data/employees.dbf');

records.forEach(record => {
  console.log(`${record.name}: ${record.salary}`);
});

With Custom Encoding

import { parseDBF } from 'dbfread';

// Use UTF-8 encoding
const records = parseDBF('./data/employees.dbf', 'utf-8');

// Use Windows-1251 encoding
const records = parseDBF('./data/employees.dbf', 'windows-1251');

Working with Memo Fields

import { parseDBF } from 'dbfread';

const records = parseDBF('./data/employees.dbf');

// Memo fields are automatically parsed if .fpt file exists
records.forEach(record => {
  if (record.notes) {
    console.log(`Notes for ${record.name}: ${record.notes}`);
  }
});

TypeScript Usage

import { parseDBF } from 'dbfread';

interface Employee {
  id: number;
  name: string;
  salary: number;
  hireDate: Date;
  active: boolean;
  notes?: string;
}

const records = parseDBF('./data/employees.dbf') as Employee[];

records.forEach((employee: Employee) => {
  console.log(`${employee.name} was hired on ${employee.hireDate.toLocaleDateString()}`);
});

File Format Support

This library supports:

• dBase III+ (.dbf files)
• Visual FoxPro (.dbf files)
• Memo files (.fpt files) - automatically detected and parsed
• Various encodings - with fallback to Windows-1252

Development

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Run tests
npm test

# Run tests with coverage
npm run test:coverage

# Build the project
npm run build

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

Repository

📦 GitHub: https://github.com/richardhristov/dbfread