Programs Known to Work with MyODBC

Most programs should work with MyODBC, but for each of those listed here, we have tested it ourselves or received confirmation from some user that it works:

ProgramComment
Access To make Access work:
  • If you are using Access 2000, you should get and install the newest (version 2.6 or above) Microsoft MDAC (Microsoft Data Access Components) from http://www.microsoft.com/data/. This will fix the following bug in Access: when you export data to MySQL, the table and column names aren't specified. Another way to around this bug is to upgrade to MyODBC Version 2.50.33 and MySQL Version 3.23.x, which together provide a workaround for this bug!

    You should also get and apply the Microsoft Jet 4.0 Service Pack 5 (SP5) which can be found here http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q 239/1/14.ASP. This will fix some cases where columns are marked as #deleted# in Access.

    Note that if you are using MySQL Version 3.22, you must to apply the MDAC patch and use MyODBC 2.50.32 or 2.50.34 and above to go around this problem.

  • For all Access versions, you should enable the MyODBC option flag Return matching rows. For Access 2.0, you should additionally enable Simulate ODBC 1.0.

  • You should have a timestamp in all tables you want to be able to update. For maximum portability TIMESTAMP(14) or simple TIMESTAMP is recommended instead of other TIMESTAMP(X) variations.

  • You should have a primary key in the table. If not, new or updated rows may show up as #DELETED#.

  • Only use DOUBLE float fields. Access fails when comparing with single floats. The symptom usually is that new or updated rows may show up as #DELETED# or that you can't find or update rows.

  • If you are linking a table through MyODBC, which has BIGINT as one of the column, then the results will be displayed as #DELETED. The work around solution is:

    • Have one more dummy column with TIMESTAMP as the datatype, preferably TIMESTAMP(14).

    • Check the 'Change BIGINT columns to INT' in connection options dialog in ODBC DSN Administrator

    • Delete the table link from access and re-create it.

    It still displays the previous records as #DELETED#, but newly added/updated records will be displayed properly.

  • If you still get the error Another user has changed your data after adding a TIMESTAMP column, the following trick may help you:

    Don't use table data sheet view. Create instead a form with the fields you want, and use that form data sheet view. You should set the DefaultValue property for the TIMESTAMP column to NOW(). It may be a good idea to hide the TIMESTAMP column from view so your users are not confused.

  • In some cases, Access may generate illegal SQL queries that MySQL can't understand. You can fix this by selecting "Query|SQLSpecific|Pass-Through" from the Access menu.

  • Access on NT will report BLOB columns as OLE OBJECTS. If you want to have MEMO columns instead, you should change the column to TEXT with ALTER TABLE.

  • Access can't always handle DATE columns properly. If you have a problem with these, change the columns to DATETIME.

  • If you have in Access a column defined as BYTE, Access will try to export this as TINYINT instead of TINYINT UNSIGNED. This will give you problems if you have values > 127 in the column!

ADO When you are coding with the ADO API and MyODBC you need to put attention in some default properties that aren't supported by the MySQL server. For example, using the CursorLocation Property as adUseServer will return for the RecordCount Property a result of -1. To have the right value, you need to set this property to adUseClient, like is showing in the VB code here:
    Dim myconn As New ADODB.Connection
    Dim myrs As New Recordset
    Dim mySQL As String
    Dim myrows As Long
    myconn.Open "DSN=MyODBCsample"
    mySQL = "SELECT * from user"
    myrs.Source = mySQL
    Set myrs.ActiveConnection = myconn
    myrs.CursorLocation = adUseClient
    myrs.Open
    myrows = myrs.RecordCount
    myrs.Close
    myconn.Close
    
Another workaround is to use a SELECT COUNT(*) statement for a similar query to get the correct row count.
Active server pages (ASP) You should use the option flag Return matching rows.
BDE applications To get these to work, you should set the option flags Don't optimize column widths and Return matching rows.
Borland Builder 4 When you start a query you can use the property Active or use the method Open. Note that Active will start by automatically issuing a SELECT * FROM ... query that may not be a good thing if your tables are big!
ColdFusion (On Unix) The following information is taken from the ColdFusion documentation: Use the following information to configure ColdFusion Server for Linux to use the unixODBC driver with MyODBC for MySQL data sources. Allaire has verified that MyODBC Version 2.50.26 works with MySQL Version 3.22.27 and ColdFusion for Linux. (Any newer version should also work.) You can download MyODBC at http://www.mysql.com/downloads/api-myodbc.html ColdFusion Version 4.5.1 allows you to us the ColdFusion Administrator to add the MySQL data source. However, the driver is not included with ColdFusion Version 4.5.1. Before the MySQL driver will appear in the ODBC datasources drop-down list, you must build and copy the MyODBC driver to /opt/coldfusion/lib/libmyodbc.so. The Contrib directory contains the program mydsn-xxx.zip which allows you to build and remove the DSN registry file for the MyODBC driver on Coldfusion applications.
DataJunction You have to change it to output VARCHAR rather than ENUM, as it exports the latter in a manner that causes MySQL grief.
Excel Works. A few tips:
  • If you have problems with dates, try to select them as strings using the CONCAT() function. For example:

           select CONCAT(rise_time), CONCAT(set_time)
               from sunrise_sunset;
           

    Values retrieved as strings this way should be correctly recognized as time values by Excel97.

    The purpose of CONCAT() in this example is to fool ODBC into thinking the column is of ``string type''. Without the CONCAT(), ODBC knows the column is of time type, and Excel does not understand that.

    Note that this is a bug in Excel, because it automatically converts a string to a time. This would be great if the source was a text file, but is plain stupid when the source is an ODBC connection that reports exact types for each column.

Word To retrieve data from MySQL to Word/Excel documents, you need to use the MyODBC driver and the Add-in Microsoft Query help. For example, create a db with a table containing 2 columns of text:
  • Insert rows using the mysql client command-line tool.

  • Create a DSN file using the ODBC manager, for example, my for the db above.

  • Open the Word application.

  • Create a blank new documentation.

  • Using the tool bar called Database, press the button insert database.

  • Press the button Get Data.

  • At the right hand of the screen Get Data, press the button Ms Query.

  • In the Ms Query create a New Data Source using the DSN file my.

  • Select the new query.

  • Select the columns that you want.

  • Make a filter if you want.

  • Make a Sort if you want.

  • Select Return Data to Microsoft Word.

  • Click Finish.

  • Click Insert data and select the records.

  • Click OK and you see the rows in your Word document.

odbcadmin Test program for ODBC.
Delphi You must use BDE Version 3.2 or newer. Set the Don't optimize column width option field when connecting to MySQL. Also, here is some potentially useful Delphi code that sets up both an ODBC entry and a BDE entry for MyODBC (the BDE entry requires a BDE Alias Editor that is free at a Delphi Super Page near you. (Thanks to Bryan Brunton for this):
    fReg:= TRegistry.Create;
      fReg.OpenKey('\Software\ODBC\ODBC.INI\DocumentsFab', True);
      fReg.WriteString('Database', 'Documents');
      fReg.WriteString('Description', ' ');
      fReg.WriteString('Driver', 'C:\WINNT\System32\myodbc.dll');
      fReg.WriteString('Flag', '1');
      fReg.WriteString('Password', '');
      fReg.WriteString('Port', ' ');
      fReg.WriteString('Server', 'xmark');
      fReg.WriteString('User', 'winuser');
      fReg.OpenKey('\Software\ODBC\ODBC.INI\ODBC Data Sources', True);
      fReg.WriteString('DocumentsFab', 'MySQL');
      fReg.CloseKey;
      fReg.Free;
      Memo1.Lines.Add('DATABASE NAME=');
      Memo1.Lines.Add('USER NAME=');
      Memo1.Lines.Add('ODBC DSN=DocumentsFab');
      Memo1.Lines.Add('OPEN MODE=READ/WRITE');
      Memo1.Lines.Add('BATCH COUNT=200');
      Memo1.Lines.Add('LANGDRIVER=');
      Memo1.Lines.Add('MAX ROWS=-1');
      Memo1.Lines.Add('SCHEMA CACHE DIR=');
      Memo1.Lines.Add('SCHEMA CACHE SIZE=8');
      Memo1.Lines.Add('SCHEMA CACHE TIME=-1');
      Memo1.Lines.Add('SQLPASSTHRU MODE=SHARED AUTOCOMMIT');
      Memo1.Lines.Add('SQLQRYMODE=');
      Memo1.Lines.Add('ENABLE SCHEMA CACHE=FALSE');
      Memo1.Lines.Add('ENABLE BCD=FALSE');
      Memo1.Lines.Add('ROWSET SIZE=20');
      Memo1.Lines.Add('BLOBS TO CACHE=64');
      Memo1.Lines.Add('BLOB SIZE=32');
      AliasEditor.Add('DocumentsFab','MySQL',Memo1.Lines);
    
C++ Builder Tested with BDE Version 3.0. The only known problem is that when the table schema changes, query fields are not updated. BDE, however, does not seem to recognize primary keys, only the index PRIMARY, though this has not been a problem.
Vision You should use the option flag Return matching rows.
Visual Basic To be able to update a table, you must define a primary key for the table. Visual Basic with ADO can't handle big integers. This means that some queries like SHOW PROCESSLIST will not work properly. The fix is to set the option OPTION=16384 in the ODBC connect string or to set the Change BIGINT columns to INT option in the MyODBC connect screen. You may also want to set the Return matching rows option.
VisualInterDev If you get the error [Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Driver does not support this parameter the reason may be that you have a BIGINT in your result. Try setting the Change BIGINT columns to INT option in the MyODBC connect screen.
Visual Objects You should use the option flag Don't optimize column widths.