I'm trying to write a C program to read an Access MDB file and convert
it to an ASCII text file.
Does anyone how I can go about doing this, or if there's already codes
written for this?  Thanks.

In article 
<c684dc15-7958-4de4-97fa-8d514b9badda@u38g2000pro.googlegroups.com>,
 Michelle <serendipity1276@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I'm trying to write a C program to read an Access MDB file and convert
> it to an ASCII text file.
> Does anyone how I can go about doing this, or if there's already codes
> written for this?  Thanks.

A google search showed that there's not a lot out there to help you.  
You may end up porting something like this Python module

http://bytes.com/groups/python/619182-anything-available-can-read-microso
ft-mdb-files-python

Or reverse-engineer the Access ODBC to DBI layer in Perl

http://search.cpan.org/~ribasushi/DBIx-Class-0.08108/lib/DBIx/Class/Stora
ge/DBI/ODBC/ACCESS.pm

In any case, if I were a IP attorney working for Microsoft and overly 
bored, I'd make note of your query, wait until you had something, then 
descend on you like a ton of bricks with a DCMA complaint for reverse 
engineering copyrighted software.

Have fun (for largely varying values of fun).

-- 
DeeDee, don't press that button!  DeeDee!  NO!  Dee...
[I filter all Goggle Groups posts, so any reply may be automatically by ignored]

On 2009-07-18 11:58:25 +0100, Michelle <serendipity1276@yahoo.com> said:

> I'm trying to write a C program to read an Access MDB file and convert
> it to an ASCII text file.

Is there a reason why you can't export it as (say) CSV from access and 
then read the CSV on the Unix side?

(This isn't meant as a rhetorical question!)

--tim

In article <vilain-8B6A07.12240718072009@individual.net>,
 Michael Vilain <vilain@NOspamcop.net> wrote:

> In article 
> <c684dc15-7958-4de4-97fa-8d514b9badda@u38g2000pro.googlegroups.com>,
>  Michelle <serendipity1276@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> > I'm trying to write a C program to read an Access MDB file and convert
> > it to an ASCII text file.
> > Does anyone how I can go about doing this, or if there's already codes
> > written for this?  Thanks.
> 
> A google search showed that there's not a lot out there to help you.  
> You may end up porting something like this Python module
> 
> http://bytes.com/groups/python/619182-anything-available-can-read-microso
> ft-mdb-files-python
> 
> Or reverse-engineer the Access ODBC to DBI layer in Perl
> 
> http://search.cpan.org/~ribasushi/DBIx-Class-0.08108/lib/DBIx/Class/Stora
> ge/DBI/ODBC/ACCESS.pm
> 
> In any case, if I were a IP attorney working for Microsoft and overly 
> bored, I'd make note of your query, wait until you had something, then 
> descend on you like a ton of bricks with a DCMA complaint for reverse 
> engineering copyrighted software.
> 
> Have fun (for largely varying values of fun).

Further investigation into this had a quote from a Microsoft Access 
product manager saying they have no plans to document the MDB file 
layout (the current version of Access uses another format).  So, you 
very likely will be impinging on their copyrights if you go forward with 
trying to reverse engineer this format.

Use existing 3rd-party products that have already paid the Microsoft tax 
to do your data extraction instead.  I can't see any reason why you'd 
bother writing a C program to do this when others have already done it.

-- 
DeeDee, don't press that button!  DeeDee!  NO!  Dee...
[I filter all Goggle Groups posts, so any reply may be automatically by ignored]

Michelle wrote:
> I'm trying to write a C program to read an Access MDB file and convert
> it to an ASCII text file.
> Does anyone how I can go about doing this, or if there's already codes
> written for this?  Thanks.



http://sourceforge.net/projects/mdbtools/