mySQL to Access database on Clients system

[subzerostudio]

I have a job in which I'm setting up a CMS that will allow the client to allocate/organise submitted form details via a backend system. This data also needs to be downloadable / editable using Access on the clients system.

 

So what I'm after is any knowledge on the way I can get mySQL and MS Access to communicate. I assume this is not simple to setup?  I understand I could output as a CSV and then import into Access that way, but it needs to be a more cohesive solution then that (as the client isn't particularly web savvy).

 

On a side note - if I were using ASP and MS Access on a Windows Server (I'm not going to, I don't have any experience with it, but just out of interest) - would it be a much simpler job?

 

Mike

[Oldiesmann]

To communicate between the two, you will need to use either a third-party database class (such as ADODB) or one of the PHP extensions that supports both Access and MySQL (such as ODBC or PDO).

 

I'm not real sure how you connect to Access databases from PHP, but basically what you'll need to do is this:

 

Pull the data from MySQL into PHP variables

Pass the data (using those variables) to Access after modifying it (if needed).

 

I honestly don't understand why this is necessary - I realize that Access isn't really designed for web databases, but why do you need both Access and MySQL?

 

Also, Microsoft Excel will open CSV files, so that might be an easier way to do things.