[Zope] updating excel as an odbc datasource

[Meilicke, Scott]

I think I explained this incorrectly. 

I just want to display information from excel with zope.  I have no need to
update the excel spreadsheet from zope.  The customer needs to be able to
update the excel spreadsheet by opening the excel file with excel, modifying
the contents, and save the contents back to the file.  Zope should then see
these changes and display the web page appropriately.

Based on the feedback so far, I have a few options:

1. Build it all in zope - more work, but may be worth it
2. Since it is zope that is doing the locking, have an access db that gets
it's info from excel, and use the access db as the datasource feeding zope
3. Update everything manually, as the data change about once a week

I'm currently using #3, and I will be pursuing #2 today.  The advantage of
#1 is I can reuse the functionality across more applications, all user
maintained - the best long term solution, as I understand the requirements.

Thanks for everyone's feedback.

Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan C [mailto:alanc@tech-world.com]
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2001 7:50 AM
To: zope@zope.org
Subject: RE: [Zope] updating excel as an odbc datasource


Uncheck Read only on the ODBC driver.
It is possible to write to Excel via ODBC, but I haven't tried it with Zope.

- Alan
---------------------------------------
Zope tips and tricks site
http://twsite.bizland.com/zopetips.htm

> -----Original Message-----
> From: zope-admin@zope.org [mailto:zope-admin@zope.org]On Behalf Of Casey
> Duncan
> Sent: Friday, November 16, 2001 9:10 AM
> To: Meilicke, Scott; 'zope@zope.org'
> Subject: Re: [Zope] updating excel as an odbc datasource
>
>
> On Thursday 15 November 2001 06:22 pm, Meilicke, Scott allegedly wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I'm using excel as an odbc datasource, and my customer needs to
> be able to
> > update the excel spreadsheet.  However, when zope has connected to the
> > database connector, I can not open the file read/write, nor can
> I replace
> > the file with another.  Read-only is checked on my odbc driver.
> >
> > Any thoughts on how to get around this?
> >
> > My connection string is just the name of the odbc connector - is there a
> > 'read only' flag I can send it?
> >
> > Thanks - Scott
>
> I don't know that an ODBC driver could write to an excel file,
> since excel
> isn't really a database, at it doesn't really support SQL. I
> would suggest
> that you implement this differently. Here are two suggestions:
>
> 1. Have Zope generate a csv (Comma separated values) file from
> the data. This
> can be read by Excel or imported using a macro. The disadvantage
> to this is
> that you do not have much formatting control.
>
> 2. Create a separate database that Zope can write to (MySQL or
> even Access).
> Then hook excel to this database via ODBC. This is more complex,
> but probably
> will give you the most flexibility.
>
> hth,
> /---------------------------------------------------\
>   Casey Duncan, Sr. Web Developer
>   National Legal Aid and Defender Association
>   c.duncan@nlada.org
> \---------------------------------------------------/
>
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