Palm Pilot Desktop Software DATEBOOK.DAT and DATEBOOK.DBA File Structure

• These formats apply to the Windows version of the Palm Desktop software.
• The information presented here may or may not be accurate, the author makes no representation as to the accuracy of any information supplied.
• Palm does not recommend that you program to the structure of the desktop data files. They have publicly stated that these files are subject to change at any time. Use this information at your own risk!

Field Name	Type	Size	Comments
Version Tag	Char	4*Byte	0x00 0x01 0x42 0x44 (DB10) for Datebook
File Name	CString		Fully Qualified Filename of file on PC
Table String	CString		Custom show header
Next Free	Long	4*Byte	Next Free Category ID
Category Count	Long	4*Byte	Count - 1 of the number of category entries (does not include Unfiled category)
Category entries	Category-Entry		Occurs category count times (Note: the standard Palm datebook doesn't use categories, but the feature is actually supported. 3rd party software may rely on categories, so you should allow for the possibility in your programming.)
Resource ID	Long	4*Byte	Schema Resource ID
Fields per Row	Long	4*Byte	Schema Fields per row. Will be 15 for datebook.
Rec ID Pos	Long	4*Byte	Schema Record ID Position (index to field table entry that contains record id)
Rec Status Pos	Long	4*Byte	Schema Record Status Position (index to field table entry that contains record status)
Placement Pos	Long	4*Byte	Schema Placement Position (index to field table entry that contains record placement position)
Field Count	Short	2*Byte	Schema Field Count (number of fields in schema) Corrected April 19, 2000
Field Entry	Short	2*Byte	Schema field entry occurs field count times. For datebook the entries will be 1,1,1,3,1,5,1,5,6,6,1,6,1,1,8 Corrected April 19, 2000
Num Entries	Long	4*Byte	Record count * 15 (number of field entries in entire file, as noted, divide by 15 to arrive at actual record count)
Datebook entry	Datebook-Entry		Occurs with record count (note, these records may be sorted in a specific order. It looks like the repeating events are first in the file. If you are adding records to the file, you may need to insert the records in the proper sort order)

Category-Entry

Field Name	Type	Size	Comments
Index	Long	4*Byte	Category Index
ID	Long	4*Byte	Category ID
Dirty Flag	Long	4*Byte	Category Dirty Flag
Long Name	Cstring		Long Category Name
Short Name	Cstring		Short Category Name

Datebook-Entry

Field Name	Type	Size	Comments
Field Type	Long	4*Byte	value 1 Integer
Record ID	Long	4*Byte
Field Type	Long	4*Byte	value 1 Integer
Status Field	Long	4*Byte	Bitwise Record Status: Pending = 0x08, Add = 0x01, Update = 0x02, Delete = 0x04, Archive = 0x80
Field Type	Long	4*Byte	value 1 Integer
Position	Long	4*Byte
Field Type	Long	4*Byte	value 3 Date
Start Time	Long	4*Byte	Number of non-leap seconds since Jan 1, 1970 GMT
Field Type	Long	4*Byte	value 1 Integer
End Time	Long	4*Byte	Number of non-leap seconds since Jan 1, 1970 GMT
Field Type	Long	4*Byte	value 5 Cstring
Padding	Long	4*Byte	Always Zero Correction as of Nov 16, 1999
Description	Cstring
Field Type	Long	4*Byte	value 1 Integer
Duration	Long	4*Byte
Field Type	Long	4*Byte	value 5 Cstring
Padding	Long	4*Byte	Always Zero Correction as of Nov 16, 1999
Note	Cstring
Field Type	Long	4*Byte	value 6 Boolean
Untimed	Long	4*Byte
Field Type	Long	4*Byte	value 6 Boolean
Private	Long	4*Byte
Field Type	Long	4*Byte	value 1 Integer
Category	Long	4*Byte
Field Type	Long	4*Byte	value 6 Boolean
Alarm Set	Long	4*Byte
Field Type	Long	4*Byte	value 1 Integer
Alarm Adv Units	Long	4*Byte	Alarm Advance time units
Field Type	Long	4*Byte	value 1 Integer
Alarm Adv Type	Long	4*Byte	0-Minutes, 1-Hours, 2-Days
Field Type	Long	4*Byte	value 8 Repeat event
Repeat Event	Repeat-Event

Repeat-Event

Field Name	Type	Size	Comments
Date Exceptions	Short	2*Byte	Count of any date exception entries Corrected Nov 16, 1999
Exception entry	Long	4*Byte	date exception entry, occurs with Date Exceptions. If date exceptions is zero, there will be no entries here.
Repeat Event Flag	Short	2*Byte	IMPORTANT 0xFFFF means that a class name record follows. 0x0000 that nothing further follows, you should stop reading the record. Any other value will be the brand of the repeat event or'd with 0x8000
Class entry	Class-Entry		This field is present ONLY if the repeat event flag is 0xFFFF
Brand	Long	4*Byte	The Brand of the repeat event. Possible values are: 1 = Daily 2 = Weekly 3 = MonthlybyDay 4 = MonthlybyDate 5 = YearlybyDate 6 = YearlybyDay Note that this field is present ONLY if the repeat event flag was NOT 0x0000
Interval	Long	4*Byte	Note that this field is present ONLY if the repeat event flag was NOT 0x0000
End Date	Long	4*Byte	Note that this field is present ONLY if the repeat event flag was NOT 0x0000
First Day of Week	Long	4*Byte	Note that this field is present ONLY if the repeat event flag was NOT 0x0000
Brand Data	Brand-Data		Variable brand data that depends upon the value of the Brand field Note that this field is present ONLY if the repeat event flag was NOT 0x0000

Class-Entry

Field Name	Type	Size	Comments
Constant	Short	2*Byte	Constant 1
Length	Short	2*Byte	Length of Class Name
Class Name	Char	Byte	Class name of length specified.

Brand-Data

Field Name	Type	Size	Comments
Day Index	Long	4*Byte	Present ONLY for Brand = 1 or Brand = 2 or Brand = 3
Days Mask	Char	1*Byte	Present ONLY for Brand = 2
Week Index	Long	4*Byte	Present ONLY for Brand = 3
Day Number	Long	4*Byte	Present ONLY for Brand = 4 or Brand = 5
Month Index	Long	4*Byte	Present ONLY for Brand = 5

Cstrings

Cstrings are stored as follows:

1. Strings less than 255 bytes are stored with the length specified in the first byte followed by the actual string.
2. Zero length strings are stored with a 0x00 byte.
3. Strings 255 bytes or longer are stored with a flag byte set to 0xFF followed by a short (2*Byte) that specifies the length of the string, followed by the actual string.

Date Fields

Date fields are stored as a long that represents the number of non-leap seconds since January 1, 1970 GMT. Note that this differs from the capabilities of the PalmOS representation on the handheld, which uses a 32 bit unsigned integer to represent the number of seconds since January 1, 1904.

Field Types

The schema mechanism uses field types to identify the data. The meanings of the field types are in the table below.

Number	Meaning
0	None
1	Integer
2	Float
3	Date
4	Alpha
5	Cstring
6	Boolean
7	Bitflag
8	RepeatEvent

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Last updated: October 26, 2002

copyright 2007-2017 Scott W. Leighton