When testing or working on a database it can be very useful to be able to back-up the contents of individual database tables, or perhaps the contents of all tables. In the event of an error in your code you can restore the data to its original form quickly and accurately.

One way of doing this is to use 4D's SEND RECORD and RECEIVE RECORD commands. These commands can be used to save the contents of records without any knowledge of the actual table and field structure. These commands also save the contents of 'fat' fields (such as text and picture fields) without having to write custom code.

This technical note describes an implementation of these commands that will work with any database structure that supports the backup and subsequent restore, of either individual tables or all tables in a database. This solution is transparently cross-platform.

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