Re: Importing tab-delimited text files or connecting to ODBC

[Thien-Thi Nguyen <ttn@glug.org>]

Maks Romih <maksr@snt.si> writes:

> I will take a look, of course, however I'm afraid that I still
> won't find what I ask at the moment. Edb seems more a standalone
> database but I want to have some tool to connect to or import
> from other data sources, especially relational DBMS-es, excel,
> MS Access, etc.

it is true that EDB is (still) weak in terms of dealing directly
w/ external processes; you must read from, and write to, a file.
however, this stipulation is not so onerous since emacs allows you
to define file handlers (based on stylized filenames) that can
mediate between EDB and external processes.

to play, look at variable `file-name-handler-alist', and the
source code for the handful of builtin handlers listed there.
EDB itself messes around a bit w/ this handler alist, but very
very simply -- better to study e.g. `tramp-file-name-handler'.

probably a neat hack would be to wrap `x-get-selection' (or
whatever is equivalent for your platform) for reading and the
analog for writing, so that you could select some spreadsheet
range, invoke EDB on it, and save it back into the spreadsheet
(kind of like emacsclient for spreadsheet ranges).

another item for the TODO list, i suppose...

thi