### Common database formats

Although Seagate Crystal Reports uses the same three-tiered system for obtaining data from all direct access database file formats, each format requires a different set of DLLs. However, some formats expand the basic three-tiered structure.

The following sections cover the systems used by Seagate Crystal Reports to access data from some of the most popular database formats.

#### dBASE, FoxPro, Clipper

Seagate Crystal Reports has been designed to open dBASE data simply and directly through the xBase engine (inside P2bxbse.dll). FoxPro and Clipper are dBASE compatible database formats, and Seagate Crystal Reports uses the same DLL to access files created by any of these three DBMS applications.

Note: The P2bxbse.dll translation layer supports FoxPro files up through version 2.x. See Visual FoxPro for versions after 2.5.

The file P2bxbse.dll handles all translation between Seagate Crystal Reports and the dBASE, FoxPro, or Clipper files. Each database file contains only a single database table, but there is no limit to the number of files that can be accessed by a report.

Note: dBASE data can also be accessed through the Borland Database Engine (BDE) using the translation file P2bbde.dll. To see how the BDE communicates with database data, see Paradox. The BDE, however, does not support FoxPro or Clipper data.

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