I need an alternative to exporting to a csv file. Basically, the requirement is to be able to allow the user to edit any amount of data from the database. Currently, the option is to export the data to csv and then the user can update them in Microsoft Excel. Thus, one can edit it without actually needing to have our web application installed. However, we are trying to avoid this approach due to some issues we encountered with working with CSV on Excel. Can someone recommend an alternative solution?
Most programming languages have libraries to allow you to import/export excel directly which avoids many of these issues. This means you won't have to tell you users to do special Save As when saving their files.
Java: http://poi.apache.org
Ruby: http://spreadsheet.rubyforge.org or http://roo.rubyforge.org
Google can provide options for other languages.
Related
My office has a Filemaker database which they asked me to replace with a mySQL one. The mySQL one is now set up and running, but doesn't have exact same structure as the Filemaker one (they asked for more things to be added, redundant things were left out, etc.).
I've seen that the filemaker data can be exported as .xml files, could I use those to populate the mySQL database?
If so, I've only ever used
Cooktop,but I'm currently using mac10.6/lubuntu, is there maybe an equivalent (free) piece of software that could do that?
All suggestions are welcome.
Thanks
I can add some information about the various export formats that FileMaker provides. I've done extensive research and testing on this topic.
Below, you'll see a chart with all of the formats that FileMaker offers along the top. Along the side, you'll see various features of these file formats that are unique to FileMaker when exporting. Some are limitations of the FileMaker export process and others are general pros and cons of the format itself.
I'll explain them briefly:
Headers: column labels are exported
Delimiter: the type of separator symbol used
UTF 8/16: yes if either of these is available, could be of concern for special characters or some languages
Only 1 format: means that only one type of encoding is available
Other encoding: a list of all encoding options
Can be imported: FileMaker allows import (not important for this question)
Future proof: According to Wikipedia, format is still widely used and actively maintained
Open standard: open source format
Size: when exporting one of our tables, this was the size of the file
I would recommend also considering some of these factors when deciding which format will work for you. It will depend on the contents and type of your data.
MySQL is just the backend database, so you need a UI to perform the import. You could use FileMaker for this as well, if you set up the MySQL database as an ESS source. If you do this, then you can use familiar import steps in FileMaker to populate your new database.
This may be what the previous answer mentions, but just to designate between the ODBC insert via Execute SQL, which is limited, and External SQL Sources (ESS) that give a native UI in FM.
If the FileMaker database is hosted on a server, you could setup an ODBC link to the MySQL. You could then create a script, in FileMaker, to loop through the data, creating rows in MySQL with only the Columns you are looking to populate.
Other than that, you can export the data, from FileMaker, into many other formats including; TAB, CSV, Excel, xml and pushing it into MySQL.
I asked a question here a while back and using the answers, made some head way in figuring out how my DOS based legacy software works.
My problem: The software uses Btrieve to read/store data in .dbk files. I know this because the DDF files reference these dbk files. I found a number of ways to open btrieve data but only if they are stored in .btr files.
Anyone has any hints? I've spent considerable amount of time digging through resources but to no avail. All I need right now is to see the data stored in the dbk files in a readable format.
If your DDFs reference .DBK files, you should, using a version of Btrieve / Pervasive that supports it, be able to use ODBC to read the data.
Create the ODBC DSN pointing to your DDFs and Data Files.
Once created, use your favorite export tool to export the data to your favorite format.
I have a shapefile that I would like to upload to a spatial SQL Server 2008. I have tried using this tool: SQL Server 2008 Spatial Tools. But without luck.
Does anyone know any other (free) tools for doing this?
You can use ogr2ogr to convert from shapefile to GML (or many other formats) and then use SQL Server's GeomFromGML to import. You will need to call GeomFromGML for each feature in your shapefile, but that's a relatively easy program to write.
I have written code in arcbjects for do this task. If you have license arcview or engine you can create a console application in c# and use this code: see https://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/33917/how-to-import-shapefiles-into-ms-sql-2008-and-then-view-that-data-using-qgis?lq=1
UPDATE: I decided I would just point people to the official Github repo instead: https://github.com/zer0infinity/OGR2GUI
This [ogr2ogr fork] tool will attempt to parse the content of the input file (in my case, it was a shapefile) and output it as a bunch of different formats (in my case, I needed it as a CSV, but you can even export your file as a SQLite file). Unfortunately it doens't do straight up SQL, but you can do a dump from a SQLite viewer such as SQLite Browser and import it onto MS SQL. I did notice some inefficiencies when converting to SQLite (I lost some attributes/tables). I also tried MobileMapper Office (MMO) (with better luck) to export to CSV and it did preserve a lot of the data, but you'd then need to write a script to import the data to SQL. If you are going that route, let me know, I'm currently writing a VBA script to deal with the exported data from MMO.
If you're hoping to build this into your application (a script of some sort), you may have some luck trying with ogr2ogr, but you never know what the data is going to look like. documentation is found here http://www.gdal.org/ogr2ogr.html
Original answer: Save yourself sometime and just use this amazing tool: http://ogr2gui.ca/
It's based off ogr2ogr, but with a nice GUI.
I've made an app for importing shapefiles into SQL Server. It's made primarily to suit my needs but i had some spare time so i made an installer for you.
Some nice things you can do with it:
choose encoding of input shapefile
rename/remap destination table column names
choose the destination table name
set the primary key for the destination table
It has a user interface and you can download it for free.
More details can be found on my blog, here's the link: Import shapefiles into SQL Server
I need to convert a very large file from DBF format to CSV format. I have tried Microsoft Excel to do the job, but the problem is that I cannot see more than 65500 registers when I open and export the file.
Microsoft Access couldn't open the file, too.
I have found on google some shareware tools, searching for "DBF to CSV". Have you tried any of these with very large files?
Also, any solution that could export to mysql or postgresql database formats will be welcome.
Thanks in advance for your responses, best regards,
https://github.com/SocialExplorer/FastDBF
"Also included here is a small utility that reads DBF files and outputs CSV files! "
go to http://www.the-oasis.net/ftpmaster.php3?content=ftputils.htm
look for this file dbx130.zip
Bytes: 125,478 Date: 1993-03-22
dbMAX is an xBASE utility that will allow complete multi-user access
to any xBASE databases and indexes. The program uses a CUA-type menu
system with Brief(R)-style hot keys and can browse databases in up to
250 moveable, sizable windows. Almost every Clipper(R)/dBASE(R)
command is available, allowing dbMAX to replace the dBASE
Assist/Control Center or Computer Associates' DBU utility. dbMAX also
has a partially open architecture, allowing programmers to create
their own menus and operate on dbMAX internal data structures.
this utility has a dos ui but it allows you via the Copy function on the menu to export entire dbf tables in SDF or CSV format. I personally know that it can handle a file with 3.8 million rows so it should be able to handle your table.
Use OpenOffice - Its free and can handle a lot of rows. With that many rows, you might need to split the file and then convert the pieces and then reassemble.
OpenOffice 3.0 Calc maxes out at 65K rows. I tried importing a large DBF into OpenOffice 3.0 Base but it handed the job off to Calc :-(
Alternative: if you have Python 2.4 to 2.6, I can send you a copy of my soon-to-go-public DBF-reading module plus a DBF-to-CSV script. To get my e-mail address, search for "John Machin xlrd" [xlrd is my Excel XLS-reading package].
I have a .NET webforms front end that allows admin users to upload two .xls files for offline processing. As these files will be used for validation (and aggregation) I store these in an image field in a table.
My ultimate goal is to create an SSIS package that will process these files offline. Does anyone know how to use SSIS to read a blob from a table into its native (in this case .xls) format for use in a Data Flow task?
In my (admittedly limited) experience with SSIS, it is quite good at rapidly getting something up and running, but frusteratingly limited in getting something that "feels" like the most elegant, efficient solution to a programmer.
Since the Excel Source Editor seems to take only files as input, you need to give it a file or reimplement its functionality in code that can take a blob. I understand that this is unsatisfying, but in the end, this is a time saving tool.