I'm trying to make my PHP application connect to a remote Access database via ODBC.
I have tried to connect to a remote MySQL and have had no trouble doing that.
I was thinking of somehow sharing out a DSN for the Access database so that a PHP script remotely could open an ODBC connection to that DSN over the Internet.
This is just an idea, I'm not sure how to actually do it.
If anyone knows if this is even possible, has tried it, knows how to do it or have any solution to this - it would be greatly appreciated.
/Aidal
There's been a huge number of threads about this topic, and not one has answered the question, leading me to believe it's not possible without someone developing an app to do so specifically.
See http://forums.devshed.com/t76050/s.html for a similar discussion. After a load of digging, it looks as though even the *mighty* (cough) ASP struggles to do it, unless you're using SQL Server 7/2000 instead of an MDB file.
Ack ok, you are proberbly right about your assumption.
The idea about using a real DBMS like SQL server has crossed my mind, but SQL server isn't exactly cheap now is it ;)
About the "mighty" ASP /caugh /caugh - if it's possible with ASP I would assume it was also possible with PHP.
But then again, what do I know about ASP and what am I interested in knowing about ASP? not much ;)
SQL Server is a mammoth of a beast. Hell, we've got one and I haven't been near it yet, that's how scared I am...
But then I really don't like Microsoft programming tools, full-stop.
Most ASP tools/functions have been ported across. Just the other day, I found something on SourceForge that allowed ASP to work "well" under Apache web server. Why? Because IIS is so god awful to configure and run!
I'm aware of SQL Server's nature and I will stay away from it as well if I have anything to say about it - fact is however, that I'm not the one making the calls around here, my boss it hehe.
Funny that Apache supports ASP now - wonder why when the Mickysoft dudes have their own wonder-product hehe.
Point your boss at one of these forum threads, get him to search for posts relating to the differences between closed- and open-source tools, then explain why php/mysql/apache will kick @ss.
I only had a problem explaining that it wasn't an industry standard, but by god was it going to kick in. That's my constraint - staying power. So long as I don't have to rip out my hard work in a year's time in favour of another heavyweight development tool/language, they're happy.
I don't need to convince my boss of anything, because I have already convinced him that PHP/Apache/MySQL on Linux box is the way to go.
Problem is that our web application is running on a remote server hosted my another company to make all the boring maintainance stuff their issue and not ours.
In-house we (read they) run some app. that uses a DB that doesn't support any kind of connections other than that of it's own clients.
The company behind that app. will make it run on an Access DB if we want it, to make ODBC possible.
What my boss wants is that our PHP app. should be able to write into the DB of this in-house thingy's DB.
Hence my need for PHP to remotely connect to an Access DB mostlikely through ODBC somhow.