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Microsoft Access As A Client For Free Databases?
"Can this be done effectively? Is there any good documentation on connecting Access to Non-Microsoft DB servers in general, and MySQL in particular? No 'ODBC RTFM' flames, please; I'm looking for something a little deeper here."
I'm not very familiar with ODBC beyond it's basic use, so I really can't answer this question, but might this be possible if the MySQL server were somehow treated as an ODBC source? It would be tremendous coup if somehow the power of the Access front end could be used with MySQL (or PostgreSQL, or mSQL or any other open sourced RDBMS)? MySQL does have some ODBC functionality and as well as other ODBC related links on their site.
For those of you who want to immediately play around and see if this is possible, you can find the MySQL ODBC driver, here and a PostgreSQL ODBC driver here.
(My apologies. The story went live right as I was still editing it to include links in the last two paragraphs...)
Interbase has been open sourced and is multiplatform. So even if your boss is determined to use a NT/2000 server you can always move to Linux later and keep the exsisting database. MySQL lacked any stored procedure support the last time I was using it. Now that I've worked with oracle, ms sql, and interbase I don't think I would want to make a database application/site that didn't support a stored proc. I'm sure there are many ways around them but from a programming aspect I find stored procs have their uses to make the overall programming easier to maintain and understand.
Also if (which I doubt you would get any from M$ for free) free support isn't a concern then the downloadable version of interbase works quite well. I'm currently redesigning a project from paradox to interbase. Access like paradox is a non intellegent database which requires all work to be done on the client side. The SQL server has intellegence on the server side. The other aspect of a SQL server is that the users don't have to have any access to the directory where the database actually is. I have had users accidentally delete tables before since they have to have read/write access to the tables.
Depending upon your project MySQL could be just fine, it can be run on NT also. I think if you look at the requirements of what your company needs, and which database would better fill those needs, that would make a better argument for the M$ for everything mentallity. Business oriented people will be more impressed by the business side of the argument than the technical aspect.
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It might be better to pick one of the following:
1) implement with Access like the boss wants or
2) find a better job where you can use Linux
This is not a troll, or a flame, or offtopic. I'm serious.
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I don't have too much experience with Mysql but here are some problems I have run into with postgres.
1) Make sure the ODBC driver uses cursors. If not Access will attempt to pull all data from your tables for a simple select queries. This is especially true in forms bound to tables (a bad idea in the first place).
2) the default setup of access runs queries in a case insensitive matter. Make sure you turn on the case sensitive option. Do this even if you go with ms-sql it will make migration easier when you ditch it later.
3) Make sure every table has a primary key and the index name of that primary key sorts alpheitcally first. Name your primary keys AAAAAPkey_tablename or somthething.
4) put in a timestamp field in every table it helps access out.
5) Keep your table names relatively short. Access and SQL server let you have very long table names while Oracle, postgres, db/2 will limit it. If you want to upgrade your sql server later you will be glad you kept your table names short.
6) On a similar note don't put stange character in you field or table names. Don't name objects fax# or discount% also don't use a number as the first character of an object name. Access will let you but your dabase might not. Basically it's best to limit yourself to alphanumerics and maybe the underscore.
7) Make all your table names uppercase. This is not strict but it's a good idea. If not at least try to keep a good method for capitilization and stick with it.
8) Try not to depend too heavily on stored procedures. Although they can buy performance they make switching databases very hard.
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It amuses me how the same people/companies that wouldn't use Word for creating a thousand page catalog, and wouldn't use Excel to write a corporate accounting system would, in fact, use Access to create an 'enterprise' database.
Except that isn't what is being proposed. Access is just being used as the front end. IT will work fine for that (as I can attect as we have numerous dbs running with an Access front end and a MSSQL backend. Access is definitely not good for multiusers dbs, unless you have a backend to it.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
Imagine you have an order entry form, with the top half devoted to order related fields and a sub form that has the line items for the order. Now both the main form table and subform table have pkeys that are auto_increment. In plain old access this is no big deal, but with access/(odbc)SQL you have a big problem.
According to the MySQL mailing list and the MSKB, this is because Access will re-select the data it just inserted to find the row it THINKS you are working on. That's how it get's the database default fields to take effect and the auto_inc fields. Since, for example, you might have many orders with the exact same order line information, it may or may not find what you want in that subform. Same thing for the order header, if it's a stock order from week to week, then it may not find it.
Their solution is to make every form that adds records have a field that inserts 'now' so Access can find your row better.
An ugly kludge if you ask me, but I worked with it. And when I was done I started installing ODBC drivers on every machine and making sure the DSN was right and making sure the proper version of Access was on the machine. This was the other big problem, the amount of software required to make the system work on the client side, it's un-believable. So I've abandoned Access/anySQL and now work with just web-based applications. Only software required is a browser and thanks to MS and the popularity of the internet, that means everyone will have it in one form or another. It also means people can work from home, the office, vacation, whatever.
The only drawback was rapid app development, sql forms and even forms in general require so much bitch-work to get working it's just frustrating. So I've built some perl modules that handle SQL forms generation, binding to fields, verification, and insert/update/delete functionality from data descriptions. The bonus of this is I can make the updated forms definition a module and re-use it. Now, in access, if they say "we want 1 more decimal of precision here..." you've gotta find the damn field on every form and change it there, no re-use. The only thing missing (and actively being developed) is a reporting module to generate text/html/pdf/etc reports.
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I'll drink to that. I don't know what exactly Access does, but it fails miserably with even moderately-sized tables. We use Oracle, and figured it would be nice to provide an easy-to-use interface for staff. So we bought Access, installed the drivers, and linked the tables. It would take as much as 20 minutes for windows to open; searches and so on would take longer than anyone wanted to wait. None of the tables in question is more than a few million records, which in any case should be immaterial since you'd expect the front end to use the back end to do the heavy lifting. My best guess was that Access rolls through all the data itself, totally missing the point of why there's a real database at the other end of the line.
Anyway, I ended up having them whip up a PHP/web interface instead, and everyone's happy now.
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I have actually looked into the feasibility of doing something like this before, and I think you may run into some problems. The main problem is that what Microsoft calls SQL in Access is very misleading . . . while it is structured, and is a query language, it isn't SQL. The Access version of SQL really just gives the ability to have text based representation of what can be done using the GUI queries which are needed to compete with Paradox and other proprietary databases.
In addition, Microsoft has extended the MS-SQL language to use its own proprietary extensions. Microsoft has taken the attitude with Access SQL that they take on everything else - they program what they want and the standards be damned.
The major differences between Microsoft Access SQL and ANSI SQL-92 are listed in a table on page 190 of "Access Developer's Handbook" by Litwin, Getz & Gilbert from Sybex.
Here's a quote from the above book, "Access SQL is a hybrid SQL. It differs considerably from each of the SQL standards and doesn't completely support any of the ANSI SQL standards. It lacks large chunks of the standards, particularly in the areas of security and cursors. Sometimes it supports the same functionality found in one of the standards, but with a different syntax... In other cases, similar functionality is provided elsewhere in Access... Finally, Access SQL has some useful extensions that are not present in any of the standards..."
Overall, you may have some difficulty using Access with MySQL. If your boss is making you use MS on the frontend, it really will save you some trouble to use MSSQL on the back. If you do decide to go ahead with MySQL, my only advice is to make sure it is a well-researched decision. If you don't know exactly what you are doing and it doesn't work, it will just bolster your boss's attitude that all linux / open source solutions are problematic.
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http://www.devshed.com/Server_Side/MySQL/ODBC/
"Learn it from start to finish. Installing MyODBC, creating a new data source through the ODBC Data Source Administrator, linking a MySQL database into a new MS Access database, and finally updating the MySQL database through an MS Access GUI."
Enjoy
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ODBC Socket Server is an open source database access toolkit that exposes Windows ODBC data sources with an XML-based TCP/IP interface.
It has clients for PHP, Perl, C (in Windows, Mac, and Linux), Java.
Let's see if I have this right. You don't want to use Microsoft SQL Server on a Win2K box, and you'd rather use MySQL on a Linux box. You make no mention at all why you want to do this.
I have no clue what kind of application you have -- what the nature of your data is, or the nature of the front end is. I have absolutely no idea why you think a web browser front end, PHP middleware, and MySQL back end is the superior solution. (Or, perhaps by PHP front end, you were refering to that GTK/PHP toolkit mentioned on Slashdot a few days ago, and you want all the users to have a Linux box on their desk. I don't know.) I have absolutely no idea why you believe Microsoft SQL Server and a MS Access front end to be an inferior solution.
What I do know are these things. MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server are two vastly different applications. As a DBA, you are obviously aware that on a technical level, Microsoft SQL Server is the vastly superiour database. In a shop that is almost entirely Microsoft, with only a few Mac's, the MS SQL Server is going to vastly easier to keep running, unless you plan on hiring consultants or tech's dedicated to keeping the only linux box alive.
Face it... they're on completely different planes -- the only place that MySQL beats MS SQL is on speed, on only a subset of the queries that MySQL is able to perform. You won't find any other comparisons of the two databases, becuase MySQL simply will never, ever be able to do any of the things that MS SQL does, and does well. A fair, unbiased consumer reports comparison of the two databases would be nothing but hundreds or thousands of checkboxes that give MS SQL two or three or four stars, and give a little "N/A -- not available" mark to MySQL. It would be a joke.
I'll freely admit that there are many places why MySQL is useful. The standard Linux or BSD box, running Apache/mod_perl/PHP, with a MySQL database is a tottally rocking deal. If you're a decent Unix hacker, it's easy to keep running, it's extrodinarily flexible, it's easy to learn to use, and it's fairly well documented. For 98% of the websites out there, it's plenty good enough. You can even set one up in your office on a spare pentium 75, just to try stuff out before going live with it. I love the combo, and it's what we use on a lot of the sites we develop at work. But for the people who need it or want to pay for it, we use a real database. MySQL is a great database for developers who are aware that it is not a great database, and can explain why.
But for running a dedicated database machine, hooked up exclusively to a group of MS Windows clients running a MS Access front end, in an office where the DBA isn't smart enough to make ODBC work, and the DBA's boss only uses Mac's, I can't think of a single reason you'd want to use MySQL. Not one. Having a wierd box in the corner running a wierd database on a wierd operating system that only one guy in the office understands, duct-taped up to a bunch of Windows clients, seem like the perfect recipe for a maintenance disaster a few years down the road. What a crappy idea.
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Here's a step by step of what I did to get PostgreSQL 7.1beta running with ODBC that might be useful.
You might also take a look at this page./
http://www.iserver.com/support/virtual/mysql/odbc
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You can hate Microsoft as much as you want, but MS-SQL is a whole hell of a lot better than MySQL. There's places where all these wonderful OS applications don't work nearly as well as a proprietary solution, and databases is definitely one of those places.
MySQL is a great DB for fast read access where things like row locking aren't very important. Great for the web when you don't want to spend a lot of money. But if you've already got SQL then using MySQL is just plain dumb. SQL on NT will out-perform MySQL in just about every way. Not using it just because you don't like Microsoft could get you fired, and IMO it would be justified.
As an extension of the above, and table creation must take place in MySQL and then a link in Access created. Table mods must also be performed in MySQL afaik.
I haven't done this in ~2 years, but that's how it worked then, so take it (above comments) with a few grains of salt.
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