Palm Pilot Desktop Software File Structures

• These formats apply to the Windows version of the Palm Desktop software, which outputs the data files as MFC streams files.
• For documentation on the native PalmOS versions of these files, visit the Palm OS Developer's site here.
• 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!

File Formats

The various .dat files with their corresponding archive (.aba, .tda, .dba, and .mpa) as well as backup (.bak) files all have the exact same internal file structure.

Corrections Made April 19, 2000

1. Address.dat and address.aba
2. Datebook.dat and datebook.dba
3. Memopad.dat and memopad.mpa
4. Todo.dat and todo.tda
5. Users.dat

Programming

A short tutorial on programming to read the desktop formats using a Basic Language or Perl is available here.

Sample demo programs can be found here...

• A sample QuickBasic program to read memopad.dat
• A sample Perl program to read/write address.dat
• Pilot Address Lookup Script by Adam Doppelt
• A sample Visual Basic program to read address.dat, contributed by Philip Beekman [Philip's Note]
• A sample Perl program to read datebook.dat
• A sample Python Script to read both datebook.dat and address.dat, contributed by Aleks Totic
• A sample Java program to read the Palm Databook.dat file, contributed by Chris Wilson

Important Sources of more information on the Palm Desktop file formats

• Coldsync and P5-Palm Open Source Tools
• Sourceforge - look for Palm related projects
• Pilot-Link
• Pilot-Xfer (Win32)

User Supplied Comments

• I use Plucker ( http://plucker.gnu-designs.com/ ) to read web pages offline. When one taps a link that has not already been downloaded, Plucker inserts the url into a MemoPad document. I modified the programs you have on your site to extract these links and automatically retrieve them the next time I use Plucker to load web pages. Now I have a true off-line browser!

  Beyond this, however, I wanted an easier way to have full control over the native databases on the Palm without a lot of programming. Perhaps you are aware of the P5-Palm Perl modules available at http://www.coldsync.org/#p5-Palm . These modules make it very easy to read, manipulate, and restore any database on the Palm. The biggest drawback is that they do not work with the native databases, eg. ToDo, MemoPad, etc. This is because these databases are not backed up on the PC with HotSync. I have found a way around this however!

  At the following site: http://stud.fh-heilbronn.de/~christ/pilot-xfer/ I have found a utility that allows you to back up and restore -any- Palm database. Now I can simply transfer the ToDo database by running the following DOS command on my PC:

  pilot-xfer COM2 -f ToDoDB
  

  (Since I use COM2 for my HotSync cable.) After transferring the database to the PC, I can run a simple Perl program such as the following:

      use Palm::PDB;
      use Palm::ToDo;
      use Data::Dump qw(dump);
      $pdb = new Palm::PDB;
      $pdb->Load("ToDoDB.pdb");
      print dump($pdb);
  

  This prints out the contents of the ToDo database as a Perl hashref. It is fairly simple to write more code to manipulate the contents of the database and then save it. Then I can restore the database to my Palm by running:

  pilot-xfer COM2 -i ToDoDB.pdb
  

  Using this method, knowledge of the internal workings of the database, while interesting and helpful, are unnecessary. I include this information for your own benefit, but also I hope that you will make reference to it on your web site, since your site was one of the most helpful places I found on my way to find this information. Perhaps others who seek the same information I did will find it on your page and come to the answer faster than I did.

  Thanks again, Ed Bockelman

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: July 24, 2003

copyright 2007-2017 Scott W. Leighton