[R-sig-DB] RJDBC and JDBC-ODBC bridge read remote Excel!

[Alexy Khrabrov]

Greetings -- just wanted to report that this combination really works  
to access Windows ODBC sources from a remote Mac; in particular, from  
a Mac inside whose VMWare Fusion a Windows runs!

I've got a JDBC-ODBC bridge from Easysoft.com, it's a commercial  
version with free trial (I just wanted a proof of concept, am not  
affiliated with it).  Created an ODBC source out of an Excel  
workbook.  Easysoft starts a web server to configure the bridge on  
Windows, and even serve the EJOB.jar to the clients.  Got that from  
the enclosing Mac, and connected with RJDBC!

 > jdrv <- JDBC("easysoft.sql.jobDriver","/path/to/EJOB.jar")
 > jcon <- dbConnect(jdrv,"jdbc:easysoft://192.168.1.101:8831/ 
odbcsourcename")
 > dbListTables(jcon)
[1] "stok#summary$"
 > dbListFields(jcon,"stok#summary$")
[1] "files" "lines" "words" "chars" "name"

I'm pondering various ways to use Excel alongside with R to visualize  
and grasp the data.  Alas, ODBC usage locks the Excel file from  
editing.  Another way is going through a mediating SQL database.  It  
would be useful to see a view of a data frame in Excel with its grid  
and scrolling.

In any case, here's another solution to read Excel spreadsheets from  
Mac or another Unix/Linux.

Cheers,
Alexy