MAKEMSI quickly and reliably creates MSI files in a non-programmatic way\Windows Installer FAQ (the basics).idt (text representation of database tables)

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Windows Installer Basics: .idt (text representation of database tables)

A ".idt" file is a Windows Installer text format in which a single table's structure and contents is described. This is the first few lines of such a file (for the "Control" table):

Dialog_         Control       Type        X    Y    Width Height Attributes Property Text                 Control_Next  Help
s72             s50           s20         i2   i2   i2    i2     I4         S50      L0                   S50           L50
Control         Dialog_       Control
AdminBrowseDlg  BannerBitmap  Bitmap      0    0    374    44    1                   [BannerBitmap]       PathEdit
AdminBrowseDlg  BannerLine    Line        0    44   374    0     1
AdminBrowseDlg  BottomLine    Line        97   234  277    0     1
AdminBrowseDlg  Cancel        PushButton  240  243  56     17    3                   [ButtonText_Cancel]  ComboLabel
AdminBrowseDlg  ComboLabel    Text        25   58   44     10    3                   &Look in:            DirectoryCombo
AdminBrowseDlg  CompanyLogo   Bitmap      330  10   26     26    1048577             BannerGraphic.BMP

Note that the ".idt" file is a tab seperated file and so I touched up the lines above to make the columns more obvious... These are the main features:

• Line 1 lists the table's column names in order.
• Line 2 lists the columns type and size. See the MAKEMSI "column" command for more information on this format.
• The first column on line 3 contains the name of the table.
• The second and following columns on line 3 contain the names of the one or more primary keys for this table.
• Line 4 onwards (no line 4 if table empty) contains the row data (one line per row). This data is unsorted.

You can export and import ".idt" files with "ORCA", you can also do so with these MAKEMSI commands:

• TableExportToIdt
• TableImportFromIdt

The following MAKEMSI shortcuts manipulate ".idt" files:

• Export to .IDT
• IDT Conversion

You might also wish to see the "IDT Export Flakey" issue.

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