[coldsync-hackers] generic database processing

[cilantro05 at comcast dot net]

After lengthy experimentation with pilot-link, I'm rapidly coming to the
conclusion that there is a need for a generic tool for parsing Palm databases.
Each of the above conduits has one or more deficiencies; in most cases it
would have been quicker for me to reformat my CSV data using sed and awk than
to master the often undocumented quirks of the conduit.

Is there a simple, reversible way to convert Palm databases into CSV format on
the command line?

The closest claim to this I've seen are the coldsync conduits, using the
p5-palm perl modules.  But I don't speak perl very well, and haven't been able
to figure out how to use these tools to actually do the conversion -- I don't
really want to run coldsync itself, and have no interest in a GUI such as
kpilot.

I've also tried progconv, from Palm-Progect, which claims to be precisely the
frontend to the perl scripts I'm looking for.  But e.g.
	progconv AddressDB.pdb AddressDB.txt
yields an "Use of uninitialized value in numeric eq" error somewhere in the
Progect perl code.

So I looked directly at the p5-palm perl modules, but clearly don't speak
enough perl to get started -- I think I've got them loaded correctly, but
don't have a clue how to process a file with them.

Any other ideas?  Suggestions?  HOWTOs?

Thanks.