Question

I am using VFPOLEDB driver to read DBF files and I keep getting this error and I am not sure why and how to fix the problem:

The provider could not determine the Decimal value. For example, the row was just created, the default for the Decimal column was not available, and the consumer had not yet set a new Decimal value.

Here is the code. I call this routine to return a DataSet of the DBF file and display the data in a DataGridView.

public DataSet GetDBFData(FileInfo fi, string tbl)
{
    using (OleDbConnection conn = new OleDbConnection(
    @"Provider=VFPOLEDB.1;Data Source=" + fi.DirectoryName + ";"))
    {
        conn.Open();
        string command = "SELECT * FROM " + tbl;
        OleDbDataAdapter da = new OleDbDataAdapter(command, conn);
        DataSet ds = new DataSet();
        da.Fill(ds);
        return ds;
    }
}

Answer 1

I finally solved the problem by getting the table schema and then casting all of non-character fields to varchar in the select statement. Good enough for previewing the contents of the table.