[TriLUG] Access databases under linux (getting OT)

[Jeremy P]

On 18 Feb 2002, Chris Hedemark wrote:

> So if you can at all help it, avoid sharing MDB between multiple users. 
> If you're just using MS Office as the front end, it will work happily
> against MySQL or PostgreSQL.

I agree that sharing MDB files is a bad idea.  However, I'm not sure about
your statement that Office [Access] will work happily as a front end to
MySQL databases (I haven't tried PostgreSQL).  I've had terrible luck
using the "MyODBC" package; I've tried several version of Wndows and
Access, all to no avail.

Some examples of problems:  

* When inserting a new record to a table linked to MySQL via MyODBC, the
record will show as "#Deleted# until you close and re-open the table.  
This is my primary beef with MyODBC and makes the whole setup unuseable.
* Updating records often fails for unexplainable reasons; gives off bogus
error messages with negative errno's
* It's non-inutitive to insert records in tables with autonumber fields
(you sometimes must manually change the value to NULL)
* Etc.

Apparently, the developers are aware of these problems and consider them
Access bugs, not a problem with MyODBC.  While that may be true, it
doesn't help us interoperate any better.  If MyODBC would work in an
expected way with Access, it wouold gain much more widespread use.

--Jeremy