RE: Access 97 Database and Postgres

> -----Original Message-----
> From: bmccoy(at)chapelperilous(dot)net
>
[Exporting data from Access...]
>
> Trying to do it with ODBC was just a pain the arse,
> slow, and VERY unpredictable.

That pretty much describes my experience. All that and "Hotfixes" too.
Yeesh... I started down that road because I thought it would be easier.
*cough*

Did you know that Access 2000 ships so broken that if you try to
export a table via ODBC it starts out with something like:

CREATE TABLE foo ( varchar(20), int4, float8 )

Naturally Postgres had some issues with the lack of column names. So
I'm wondering when Postgres will be fixed to handle this new MS
standard?? ;-)

(Seriously, if any masochistic individual on the list wants the
MS hotfixes for that, drop me a note.)

> You could also autmoate this somewhat by writing a Perl script or
> something similar and querying the data out of Access (via ODBC, of
> course), and then putting it directly into Postgres via DBI.
> This way you
> can massage data in between if necessary.

Mmm?? Now you've really got my ear. You're saying I could hack up
something in Perl on the Linux box to snarf data out of the Access
database on the Windoze box via ODBC? (I just assumed that the
Windoze ODBC stuff would be client-only.) I've already done some DBI
stuff with Postgres, so I'm not completely out in the dark here.

Provided I wouldn't have to code up anything _too_ massive, this
sounds like something I very much wish I had known a couple of
months ago!

Thanks Brett.

-cw-

--
Charlie Wilkinson - TRIS Development Systems Administrator
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Phone: 202-283-3241
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