Search.mcsdb.gif & Search.s3db.gif

[devjoe]

I'm building a large merged HTML5 project. When I build the master project, in the Subsystems/projectname/Data/Search.mcsdbf/ folder there are two files, Search.s3db.gif and Search.mcsdb.gif - but only in the subsystems that were updated in that build. This file doesn't exist in the output folders for the individual projects, so when unchanged projects are copied into the master during the build, they don't have these files.

What's the purpose of these files? Why build them only for changed projects?

[Florent_auvesy]

Dear Madcap Friends,
Sorry for the thread necromancy...

We'd really need to know what kind of information is stored in the *.s3db files
and in the *.fldb files, while we're at it...

[joy]

Did anyone ever learn anything about these files? We're seeing them when building a master project too.

Did you just remove them?

[Paulie]

Hi there,

I am pretty sure that file is an SQLite database file. You could install a free tool such as DB Browser for SQLite and take a look and see what is in this database.

Link:
http://sqlitebrowser.org/

[joy]

I am pretty sure that file is an SQLite database file. You could install a free tool such as DB Browser for SQLite and take a look and see what is in this database.

Thanks Paulie. I still don't know why Flare generates them but at least now I can open them!

[joy]

Just closing the loop on this question. Madcap says:

This file typically should only appear if you're building a DotNet Help output. If you'd like to remove it, you should be able to, but I would recommend creating a backup of the project before doing so in case it needs to be restored.

We weren't building DotNet help (we tested it years ago, but never delivered it). So, maybe these files had been around for a long time and we just didn't notice them.

[devjoe]

And to completely close the loop, it seems like they are in fact no longer being generated for HTML5 help by Flare 11. My original comment was for Flare 10, which exhibited the odd behavior I mentioned back then.