��Linux��ʵ�ֶ�Microsoft Access Database(.mdb

You will need the following:
Linux ( I��m running RedHat 9.0)
PHP
Apache
UnixODBC
MDBTools

INSTRUCTIONS
1) Download the UnixODBC RPM, found here. I installed unixODBC version 2.2.5.1.
rpm -ivh unixODBC-2-2.5-1.i386.rpm

2) Download the MDBTools rpm, found here. I installed mdbtools version 0.5.1. Read limitations!
rpm -ivh mdvtools-0.5-1.i386.rpm

3) Download the MDBTools ODBC driver rpm. Again I installed version 0.5-1.i386.rpm. Read limitations!
rpm -ivh mdbtools-odbc-0.5-1.i386.rpm

4) Add the mdbtools driver to your unixODBC config.
Create a new text file. NON-LINUX user: Beware do not do this on windows as you might get werid new lines, use vi.

[MDBToolsODBC]
Description = MDB Tools ODBC drivers
Driver = /usr/lib/libmdbodbc.so.0
Setup =
FileUsage = 1
CPTimeout =
CPReuse =

NOTE: The driver may be in /usr/local/lib/libmdbodbc.so.0. This happens if you build from source and use the make install command. The RPM puts it in /usr/lib.
Now install the driver using the file you created. This is called a template file.
odbcinst -i -d -f template.file

5) Define the datasource name. This is done in the /etc/odbc.ini file. So pull up this file in vi or another text editor and add the following lines.

[Dogs]
Description = Microsoft Access Database of Dogs
Driver = MDBToolsODBC
Database = /var/data/my_dog_db.mdb
Servername = localhost
UserName =
Password =
port = 5432

That��s it you should now have an odbc connection available. I will demonstrate using php, this assumes that your php is compiled with UnixODBC support, the version that ships with Redhat 9 does if yours does not then you can learn how here.

So I will write a quick php script to query my dogs database and print out the names and weights of my dogs.

$myDB = odbc_connect(��Dogs��,��",��");
$query = ��select name, weight from dog_list��;
$result = odbc_exec($myDB, $query);
while (odbc_fetch_row($result)) {
print ��Name = �� . odbc_result($result,��name��);
print ��
Weight = �� . odbc_result($result,��weight��);
}

If you get a php error that says odbc_connect is not a function then see if you have php-odbc installed. Do rpm -qa php-odbc. If you see php-odbc returned then you have it if not install it., the rpm is available on the redhat discs.

Limitations:
- As of the time of writing this entry MDBTools did not support write access to the mdb files. This was fine for my purposes as I was reading data in and sticking it into a mysql database.
- There is a bug in MDBTools v0.5 which does not allow you to query tables or columns with an underscore. This was a bug I hit early on, but it has been fixed in new version 0.6 but that has not been released as of the time of writing this article. So I recompiled the 0.5 source code with the fix from the 0.6 CVS repository. I have bundled it into a 0.5 release and have the two rpms mentioned above here:
mdbtools-0.5-1.i386.rpm
mdbtools-odbc-0.5-1.i386.rpm

I would check the official download site before using my hacked version as I��m sure this bug will be fixed in 0.6 (plus rumor has write access will be present as well).