mdb-ver(1)

✨ mdb-ver — the manual page, but make it a vibe ✨

okay bestie, welcome to mdb-ver(1) 💅 it's one of the little executable programs / shell commands that ships with MDB Tools, and honestly? she's short, she's sweet, she tells you what kind of MDB database you're holding. iconic behaviour tbh.

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🌸 NAME 🌸

mdb-ver — return the format of a given MDB database. that's it. that's the whole job. queen of knowing what things are 🎀

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

mdb-ver database
mdb-ver -h|--help
mdb-ver -M|--version

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

mdb-ver is a utility program distributed with MDB Tools. no cap.

you hand her a database file, and she hands you back a single line of output corresponding to the program that produced the file. one line!! no essays, no drama, just the tea ☕

here's the full menu of possible answers, so you know what you're looking at:

• 'JET3' — for files produced by Access 97
• 'JET4' — Access 2000, XP and 2003
• 'ACE12' — Access 2007
• 'ACE14' — Access 2010
• 'ACE15' — Access 2013
• 'ACE16' — Access 2016

she really said "I will identify your file and I will not elaborate further" and honestly? respect 🫡

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -M, --version — print the version of mdbtools (rather than the version of the MDB file) and exit. yes, she's talking about herself here. main character moment 👑

(also, per the synopsis up top: -h / --help — because every good utility lets you ask for help 🫶)

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🌈 NOTES 🌈

okay so this is the lore 📖

Access changed its format between Jet 3 (used in Access 97) and Jet 4 (used for Access 2000 and XP). the nature of the changes included:

• moving the page size from 2K to 4K
• added support for unicode

MDB Tools actively supports both formats. newer versions are very much like Jet4. so like, she's fluent in old-school and new-school, and she refuses to pick a favourite 💅

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🧚 ENVIRONMENT 🧚

• MDB_JET3_CHARSET — defines the charset of the input JET3 (access 97) file. default is CP1252. see iconv(1). yes she's putting you onto a whole other manpage, she's a connector 🔗
• MDBICONV — defines the output charset. default is UTF-8. mdbtools must have been compiled with iconv — so if that's not the case, this one's just gonna sit there looking pretty 🙈
• MDBOPTS — a colon-separated list of options. the little menu of extras:
  • debug_like
  • debug_write
  • debug_usage
  • debug_ole
  • debug_row
  • debug_props
  • debug_all is a shortcut for all debug_* options
  • no_memo (deprecated; has no effect) — she's retired, leave her alone 💀
  • use_index (experimental; requires libmswstr) — experimental!! handle with care, she's still in her testing era 🧪

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🕰️ HISTORY 🕰️

mdb-ver first appeared in MDB Tools 0.4. an OG. a pioneer. we stan a legacy icon ⭐

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

mdb-array(1) mdb-count(1) mdb-export(1) mdb-header(1) mdb-hexdump(1) mdb-import(1) mdb-json(1) mdb-parsecsv(1) mdb-prop(1) mdb-queries(1) mdb-schema(1) mdb-sql(1) mdb-tables(1)

the whole friend group fr fr 🫂 go say hi to all of them.

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🎀 AUTHORS 🎀

the mdb-ver utility was written by Brian Bruns. thank you Brian, king behaviour 👑

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💀 BUGS 💀

bestie. listen. she does minimal checking on the validity of a file. it is possible for her to misidentify a non-MDB file. so if you feed her a random file and she confidently goes "JET4" — she might be lying. not maliciously!! just confidently 😭 vibe check your inputs.

also: mdb-ver does not recognize Access 2.0 (Jet 2). she simply does not acknowledge it. it's giving "I don't know her" 🙈

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and that's the whole page babes!! this one came to you from MDBTools 1.0.1, dated 13 July 2026 — mwah, go identify some databases, you've got this 💖✨🎀