title: Opening and searching dBase III (DBF) databases in Python
body: <p>I'm looking to develop an application in python which needs to search through a dBase III database file (DBF).  I've been searching for a while now, but I cannot find any good documentation on how to do this.  I've tried using DBFpy but cannot find any documentation on how to index/search a column.  I've also tried to follow the advice in <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2373086/python-fast-querying-in-a-big-dbf-xbase-file">this thread</a> but apparently my DBF file is "closed."  I looked at the calls <a href="http://packages.python.org/dbf/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">listed here</a> but could not determine how to "open" the file.  Could anyone recommend a python module for working with DBF files with documentation or instruct me how to properly use other DBF python modules.  Thanks!</p>