[R] Import Access MDB on line

[Barry Rowlingson]

On Fri, Nov 18, 2011 at 1:53 PM, Raphael Saldanha
<saldanha.plangeo at gmail.com> wrote:

>  I would like
> to import this dataset direct into R, without saving the file on disk
> (for using the most updated file),

 You don't really have much choice - I'm certain that the mdb-tools
won't read from a remote ftp server and I suspect RODBC won't either.


> I don't know if I have the mdb-tool on my system, may is this. If so,
> how should I install this?

sudo apt-get install mdbtools

 should get you what you need to Hmisc to work. It works for me - but
you do have to download the data file. It won't work via an FTP
connection.

 One possibility is to set up an FTP-based file system - basically an
operating system 'hook' that presents the FTP site as if it was a
local set of files. Have a look under the 'connect to server' options
on the ubuntu menus.

 The real solution would be for the data to be supplied from a
database server at their end, and you could get the latest data using
RMySQL or whatever.

 Note that I can't find any geographic coordinate info in the mdb you
referenced - if this is, as I suspect, an ESRI Geodatabase, then you
won't be able to get polygons or point locations.

Barry