Hello Tom. >-----Original Message----- >From: Tom Playford [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Sent: Monday, September 20, 2004 3:41 PM > > [...] >I have a client who would (basically) like to edit a (mysql) database >from MS Excel via the web (he needs to be able to do this from >anywhere). [...]
You don't need Excel at all. What you can do is to create an Cocoon application. If your data model is static enough, you can supply your application with some XML files describing the database (if you don't want to read metaDB information all the time). With this information you are able to create SQL statements you execute via the SQL transformer. The result can be prettyprinted to HTML tables. Supplying them with "edit" and "delete" buttons as well as functionality for adding new rows gives a low level tool. You may think of more administrative functionality (like creating or dropping tables etc). But with the help of the SQL transformer you may be able to do quite a lot. I've done it myself with MySQL and Oracle - works pretty well. >Excel 2003 seems to have decent XML import and export, >perhaps this could be a method? Saying that Excel speaks a bit XML doesn't mean anything. I don't have Excel 2003, but 2002. The XML it produces is, well, hmm, quite complex. >Does anyone have any experience using cocoon for doing this sort of >thing... or am I on completely the wrong track. I've set up a DB tool with Cocoon and it works for editing the tables, adding and deleting rows, querying for certain terms and fields etc. It is a remittance work, so I'm not able to give you any source but the assurance you're on the right track and it works. You just don't need Excel at all. If you're looking for an alternative way, you might consider OpenOffice.org for accessing MySQL direktly. I haven't done this, but read about it. You might get more information on this in an OpenOffice.org mailing list or newsgroup. cheers. Martin. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
