# DAT File decoder/viewer



## rdonovan1 (Nov 26, 2008)

Does anyone know how to write a DAT file decoder/viewer at all? I'm just wondering because I'm trying to view some Yahoo Messenger DAT files, but so far I haven't found any software out there that can really do that at all and at the moment I'm seriously starting to think that maybe my only option is to write my own, but at the moment I'm not really sure as to how to go about doing that. 

I've got Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate on my computers so I can write the program using any of the languages that come with Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate.


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## mt2002 (Sep 14, 2005)

Hello,

Your request for a "DAT file decoder" is erroneous. DAT is a generic file extension for a binary data file format. The structure for the file is program specific -- there is no single DAT file viewer.

It would seem there are "Yahoo Messenger Archive Decoder" programs which might be what you want. Searching with this text string in Google provides a lot of possible decoding programs that you can try. One possible link is http://www.ymdecoder.com/

If you do have to end up writing your own software, you will need to obtain the file format specification in order to properly develop a parser for the file. However I would suggest trying the above Google search and trying some of the suggested software prior to doing so.


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