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I'm stuck and not sure if somebody had a similar issue.

I have an old database stored as .bin files. It dates back to 2012. I can see an xml catalogue file which indicates to me that it is some kind of SQL database.

Please see below:

<Table>
<Fields>
    <Field Name="BookID" SQLType="3" DataType="0"/>
    <Field Name="BookName" SQLType="200" DataType="3"/>
    <Field Name="ID" SQLType="3" DataType="0"/>
    <Field Name="ParagraphID" SQLType="3" DataType="0"/>
    <Field Name="TextData" SQLType="203" DataType="3"/>
</Fields>
<ConnectionStrings>
    <ConnectionString>Provider=SQLNCLI10.1;Server=(local);Database=Library;Trusted_Connection=yes;</ConnectionString>
</ConnectionStrings>
<Queries>
    <Query>SELECT * FROM Docs_Pages</Query>
</Queries>
<DataKey>DataKey</DataKey>

Does anybody have an idea how to browse the TextData column?

Any recommendation for a programme that works on mac would be great. If it has to be windows is fine too, as I have a VM with Windows.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

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8
  • SQL server native client, so you may need Windows.
    – Gerard H. Pille
    Commented Mar 22, 2021 at 12:02
  • 1
    I don't think .bin is a standard SQL Server format so unless you can find some documentation or do some reverse engineering I think it is going to be difficult.
    – Stephen Morris - Mo64
    Commented Mar 22, 2021 at 17:38
  • Possibly open in a hex editor, if that gives any readable clue...
    – Tibor Karaszi
    Commented Mar 22, 2021 at 18:35
  • Thanks for the suggestions above, I don't mind if windows is needed. Just to give further info, the dataset is split into folders named as "BookID","BookName", "ID","ParagraphID"and"TextData". These folders contains multiple files mainly .bin extension but "BookID" and "ID" folders each contain the following files: "Records.bin", "Records.bin.ind", "Records.bin.inf", "Records.bin.ord".
    – Ali Nato
    Commented Mar 23, 2021 at 1:23
  • .inf file is empty but .ord file contains the following in hex editor(not sure if useful): !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~ÄÅÇÉÑÖÜáàâäãåçéèêëíìîïñóòôöõúùûü†°¢£§•¶ß®©™´¨≠ÆØ∞±≤≥¥µ∂∑∏π∫ªºΩæø¿¡¬√ƒ≈∆«»… ÀÃÕŒœ–—“”‘’÷◊ÿŸ⁄€‹›fifl‡·‚„‰ÂÊÁËÈÍÎÏÌÓÔÒÚÛÙıˆ˜¯˘˙˚¸˝˛ˇ
    – Ali Nato
    Commented Mar 23, 2021 at 1:23

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