Re: [SLUG] Read MS Access files on Linux (using php?)

[Phil Scarratt <fil@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Peter Rundle wrote:
> Sluggers,
> 
> I've been given some data in .mdb format from one of our lovely
> government departments.
> (don't even mention the issue of proprietary formats propagated by
> public services or I'll scream and possibly kill some brain dead public
> servant).
> 
> So I need to read these files and extract the data from them. Google
> tells me that you can access this data using an ODBC driver but then
> Google also tells me that this is likely to end in a horror story.
> However, I believe that I've seen/read somewhere that there are tools
> available that allow me to open and read the files directly as raw data
> files.
> 
> Does anyone know if this is the case and if so what the name of the
> tools are? I think I've seen it done in PHP but thought that might have
> been a specially compiled version of PHP or an object library added to
> the PHP.
> 
> The PHP on the server I've got to use is a standard version from a
> distribution and I don't want to pollute it with binary libraries of
> possible.
> 

I know with a Pear module of some sort installed, PHP can read/write
Excel files. It is possible the same is doable with Access files. Of
course, it is also possible that it is not the case.

Fil