[mdb-dev] New user of mdbtools

[Nigel K. <sup...@pe...>]

Hello Everyone,
 
After a bit of fiddling and patience I have finally managed to checkout the
cvs version of mdbtools and compile it on a system running CentOS5.
 
As far as I can see the tools have been around for some time and ongoing
activity (development, forum/mailing list posts etc.) is fairly minimal, but
I am glad to have found the tools as they are helping greatly with a project
to import access 97 data into a MySQL database on a nightly basis.
 
One thing I did note, and found some comments on the 'net' about, was the
fact that the current/latest mdb-export tool does nothing about CR, LF or
CR/LF codes within data fields and this was a problem for me so I have
approached it in two ways:
 
1) Using an awk command to post-process the generated csv files:
 
awk -v RS="\r\n" -v ORS=" " {print} infile.csv > outfile.csv
 
2) I also had a look at the source code for mdb-export.c and modified it to
include an '-L' switch to replace CR and LF codes in data fields with
spaces. I am not sure if the code I have added is the most elegant way to
achieve the desired result (This was my first ever work in c and my last
real major programming work was in the 1990s in pascal!), but if anyone
wants the code - or there is a proper way to submit it to the project - just
let me know.
 
All the best
 
Nigel Kendrick