SPUG: txt -> db

James Moore james at banshee.com
Tue May 11 20:09:03 CDT 2004


AFAIK, the mdb file format isn't usable from anything other than Jet itself
(the engine that writes those things - Access is built around Jet).  In the
past MS has guarded the mdb format like a rabid dog, and since it's of
dubious value I don't know of any non-MS attempts to read and write it
directly.  Doesn't mean they don't exist, I just don't know about 'em.

Possibilities:

1.  Set up an ODBC driver on the Windows box that's going to run the
database and talk to that.  I've never tried to hook Perl straight up to
odbc, but it's probably straightforward.

2.  (What I'd do, since #1 would require learning something new, and
everyone knows that once you become a real estate agent your ability topi)
Write to a mysql database which you then export via odbc to an access or a
sql server setup.  On the sqlserver side run a query to select from mysql
into a local table.  Haven't done this exactly, but I do use mysql databases
in Access via odbc, so getting the rest of the way should be trivial (it's
just a query once you're reading the mysql tables in Access).

3.  (Warning - heresy alert)  Don't bother.  Your target is an MS-specific
abomination.  Embrace the darkside and go with an all-MS solution.

- James





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