It is a 4-step process. Each record in the database is separated by a carriage-return.
Fields are tab-delimited.
A Perl script is then used to reformat the raw database into something easily indexable by freeWAIS-sf. Specifically, fields are labeled and records are delimited by blank lines. Additionally, each record is given a bit of HTML formatting for display purposes. Finally, the reformatted database is indexed. The last step is the creation of a user interface to the newly created WAIS index with SFGate.