[R] ms access --> mysql --> R in Linux

[Marc Schwartz]

On Mon, 2004-11-01 at 14:31, Mateusz Loskot wrote:
> 01.11 2004 r., on 19:14 Anne York wrote:
> > I am trying to use some ms access databases in R (version 
> > 1.9.1 or 2.0 on a Debian system).  In searching the net for 
> > promising software to do this, I found mdbtools. Mdbtools 
> > claims the ability to convert schemas and tables in MS 
> > Access to MySQL and other databases.
> > 
> > http://mdbtools.sourceforge.net/
> > 
> > I'm wondering if anyone in the R community has tried using 
> > this software to use MS-Access databases in R with a Linux 
> > system. If so, Were you successful? What kind of problems 
> > did you encounter?
> > 
> 
> I tried mdbtool on my linux box and I can say that
> it supports MDB format quite well but I would
> like to say that there is no _good_ software
> which provides GUI for basic operations on MDB files
> like table management, querying etc.

Just as an FYI, you might want to review what the OO.org folks are doing
by integrating the mdbtools functionality into OpenOffice:

http://dba.openoffice.org/drivers/mdb/index.html

A goal of the integration would be to provide a GUI-like interface to
Access tables, such as can be done under Windows using ODBC:

http://www.openoffice.org/FAQs/ms-access/ms-access.html

or what has been done with MySQL:

http://www.unixodbc.org/doc/OOoMySQL.pdf

The issue at this point (among many I suspect) is that the mdbtools
package is read-only to Access, though there are longer term plans to
enable write functionality. So for the time being at least, there is no
actual management ability to modify existing tables and queries.

Lastly, you can also get a feel for what the OO.org folks are doing with
their own internal applications in the area of DBMS:

http://dba.openoffice.org/miscellaneous/dba20.html

HTH,

Marc Schwartz