What's a '.dat' file?

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Hi!!...How do I read o see the contents of a *.dat file?....Wich program can I use for open it?
Thnaks.

As stated in the article you just commented on: there's no way to know.

i would like to open my dat file. the problem is dont know what program to use can any one help. thanks......

open with notepad

What would be the purpose of sending information to the *.dat file rather than sending it to the database?

A .dat file could *be* the applications database. There's just no way to know how it's used or what it contains.

Thank you for the reply - next question can I use Crystal reports to generate reports from a .dat file? We use Oracle, sqlbase, sqlserver, access but I have never had to assist a customer with a system using .dat files so I am treding on new ground! Thank you in advance.

Trish

There's no way to know. It depends on the application that has created the .dat file.

i have a few dat files that i want to open. tried opening them with notepad but that didn't work. they are conversations that were automatically saved when chatting on yahoo messenger. how can i open these up?

Normally a .dat file should only be opened using the application that created it, or an application that is compatible with it. In fact here's a note from the Yahoo messenger help page:

"Please Note: Archives (.dat files located on your system) are encrypted and can only be viewed by the Yahoo! ID that created them. These archives are stored locally on your system, so the conversations held on that specific computer are only accessible from that computer. Once archives are deleted, they cannot be retrieved."

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