So, while overnight everybody has said something about this.. Let me add a
few lines. Also because I just want to keep the discussion running, since
I'm having pretty much the same kind of situation.
First of all, what I get fro your description is that your friend wants to
make changes to access 'offline'. That means: when he's not connected to the
server that should parse the MS Access file. Makes me believe that he will
have to upload the Access file to the server which parses it. Even though
there's huge bandwidths nowadays, that's really not what you want for a ms
access file. Those fella's get HUGE.
I'd suggest you use XML for the talking. Haven't tried it yet, but I know
there's VB functions availabel within MS Access to save the data from a
table to XML. Then, almost any language can read PHP and thus parse it.
Other benefits are that there's just one button to click on, and the
interface will create XML files for all of your tables. Those files will
always be smaller than your MS Access file, since the latter also has
queries, forms and a lot of kbytes nobody knows where they come from.
As for what I'm running into is this. The frontend for the database is MS
Access, the data comes from PostgreSQL (using PosgresODBC to connect) and
there are four possible places where the user can access and make changes to
the database.
- 1+2: Connected to the server, using SAMBA to access the filesystem
- 3+4: Locations where there's no internet connection whatsoever whil
editting. Data syncing happens over a swappable harddisk.
Any ideas what might be the best way to handle it. On each location edits
and additions are possible, on data should ever get lost for any reason
thinkable and thus all changes made at any place should get into the main
PostgreSQL server.
Hoping to have helped and to recieve help in return I am saluting you all :D
Wouter
-> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
-> Van: Weston Cann [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
-> Verzonden: maandag 25 augustus 2003 3:18
-> Aan: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-> Onderwerp: Re: [PHP] Reading an MS Access Database file on *NIX platform
-> using PHP
->
->
->
-> On Sunday, August 24, 2003, at 05:31 PM, Giz wrote:
->
-> > Access is a pc database. It doesn't run on unix. Why people
-> insist on
-> > beating their heads against the wall in this manner I will never know.
-> > Ignorance I suppose. The alternative is to have your friend use a
-> > relational database and have a few simple forms that will allow him to
-> > insert/update/delete. Best of both worlds, and the open source/free
-> > databases mysql/postgresql are used on thousands of websites
-> every day.
->
-> I share a low regard for Access, and I've got a set of standard
-> forms/code I use to set up a nice interface to MySQL, and I
-> showed it to
-> my friend. He likes that, but there's a problem:
->
-> He wants to be able to make changes offline, and then sync up.
->
-> This isn't an uncommon desire... I've run into people wanting
-> to do this
-> before (with Excel spreadsheets, no less). And in fact, it's probably
-> the most convenient way of doing things, as long as they're
-> warned about
-> certain dangers (overwrites from competing unsynced database files).
-> There's a certain cumbersome nature about web forms and the time delay
-> involved in HTTP transactions.
->
-> So anyway, that's the motivation for using Access here.
->
-> David Otton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
->
-> > Suggestion: go backwards. Set up the data in, say, MySQL with an ODBC
-> > driver, and use Access as a front-end onto that data (Access makes a
-> > good
-> > front-end for manipulating other databases). I've done this with SQL
-> > Server,
-> > but it should be possible with anything that can talk ODBC.
-> >
-> > He gets the interface he's used to, you get a database that can run
-> > under
-> > BSD. Of course, changes will be reflected in the site in real-time,
-> > which
-> > may be a good thing or a bad thing.
-> >
-> > Either that or export the data from Access in a readable format, and
-> > import
-> > it at the other end.
->
-> These ideas might work better; especially the latter. If COM doesn't
-> work under UNIX and ODBC can only talk to FoxPro, Access, and other
-> document (rather than server) oriented databases with the help of some
-> special Win32 control panel/dll, then it would seem that the
-> only way to
-> do offline updates that are then synced would be exporting from Access
-> in some standard format.
->
-> But it seems somewhat odd to me that there aren't any UNIXy (PHP, Perl,
-> something....) for parsing Access files. I know there's a few CPAN
-> modules for Excel, but it's interesting that there's apparently nothing
-> for Access.
->
->
-> ~ == ~
-> http://weston.canncentral.org/
->
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