From: Dan Nelson
Date: September 4 2003 5:43pm
Subject: Re: ISAM....the name sounds so familiar....
List-Archive: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql/149083
Message-Id: <20030904174310.GJ98381@dan.emsphone.com>
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In the last episode (Sep 05), Chris Nolan said:
> One of my clients has two applications running on SCO OpenServer (I
> said a naughty word...oh dear...) boxes. Personally, I have major
> personal and professional problems with this current arrangement and
> am trying as quickly as possible to move them away from these ancient
> things.
> 
> Interestingly, both of the applications in question (written in COBOL
> for reasons I fail to understand) both mention ISAM storage engines
> when starting. Is there any relationship here to the storage engine
> MySQL uses as it's default? I'm just looking for an easy way of
> pulling this data out should it be needed for whatever reason and
> would prefer to do it with a proper database, written in a proper
> language, running on a proper operating system (preferably running on
> a proper server platform, like an x86-64 box).

ISAM just stands for "indexed sequential access method"; basically any
flat file database with an optional separate index file can be called
ISAM.  MySQL almost certainly will not be able to open those databases.

-- 
	Dan Nelson
	dnelson@stripped