OK after taking a long look at the file format, I see that it's basically a binary format with ASCII values embedded.

There's a lot of information in there that you also don't care about, for example, layout names, GUI info, creation date info fot he DB file itself, printer drivers, & what looks like serial number hashes as author stamps. (Not a listed feature mind you.)

The binary info doesn't line up to a consistent ASCII representation for a delimiter string, so though you can grep through & find the info, that won't help you parse it worth a damn.

What I DID think of however, was that an access mechanism could be written somewhat trivially using an AppleScript/PERL hybrid. Naturally this would only work under Mac OS, so odds are that doesn't help. But it does give me an easier way to solve this problem. Unfortunately I have no macs @ work. ); So It'll have to wait until I get home tonight.