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Welcome to the exciting world of MDB Tools! MDB Tools is a set of programs to
help you extract data from Microsoft Access files in various settings. See the
[NEWS](./NEWS) file for information about the latest release.
## Components
The major pieces of MDB Tools are:
### libmdb
The core library that allows access to MDB files programatically. See [mdbtools.h](./include/mdbtools.h.in) for the complete API.
### libmdbsql
Builds on libmdb to provide a SQL engine (aka Jet). See [mdbsql.h](./include/mdbsql.h) for the complete API.
### utils
Provides command line utilities, including:
| Command | Description |
| ------- | ----------- |
| `mdb-ver` | Prints the version (JET 3 or 4) of an mdb file. |
| `mdb-schema` | Prints DDL for the specified table. |
| `mdb-export` | Export table to CSV or SQL formats. |
| `mdb-json` | Export table to JSON format. |
| `mdb-tables` | A simple dump of table names to be used with shell scripts. |
| `mdb-count` | A simple count of number of rows in a table, to be used in shell scripts and ETL pipelines. |
| `mdb-sql` | A simple SQL engine (also used by ODBC and gmdb). |
| `mdb-queries` | List and print queries stored in the database. |
| `mdb-hexdump`\* | (in [src/extras](./src/extras)) Simple hex dump utility to look at mdb files. |
| `mdb-array`\* | Export data in an MDB database table to a C array. |
| `mdb-header`\* | Generates a C header to be used in exporting mdb data to a C prog. |
| `mdb-parsecsv`\* | Generates a C program given a CSV file made with mdb-export. |
\* Deprecated
See the man page of each program for usage instructions.
The [src/util](./src/util) directory also contains a number of debugging tools, intended for developers. They are:
| Command | Description |
| ------- | ----------- |
| `prcat` | Prints the catalog table from an mdb file. |
| `prkkd` | Dump of information about design view data given the offset to it. |
| `prtable` | Dump of a table definition. |
| `prdata` | Dump of the data given a table name. |
| `prole` | Dump of ole columns given a table name and sargs. |
These tools are not installed on the host system.
### odbc
An ODBC driver for use with unixODBC or iODBC driver manager. Allows one to use MDB files with PHP for example.
### gmdb2
The Gnome MDB File Viewer and debugger. Recently ported to GTK+3 and moved to [mdbtools/gmdb2](https://github.com/mdbtools/gmdb2).
## License
Files in libmdb, libmdbsql, and libmdbodbc are licensed under LGPL and the
utilities and gui program are under the GPL, see [COPYING.LIB](./COPYING.LIB)
and [COPYING](./COPYING) files respectively.
## Requirements
First, you must have reasonably current installations of:
* [libtool](https://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/)
* [automake](https://www.gnu.org/software/automake/)
* [autoconf](https://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/) (version >= 2.64)
If you want to build the SQL engine, you'll need
[bison](https://www.gnu.org/software/bison/) (version >= 3.0) or
[byacc](https://invisible-island.net/byacc/byacc.html), and
[flex](https://github.com/westes/flex).
If you want to build the ODBC driver, you'll need `unixodbc-dev` (version
2.2.10 or above) or [iodbc](http://www.iodbc.org/dataspace/doc/iodbc/wiki/iodbcWiki/WelcomeVisitors).
If you want to build man pages, you'll need
[GNU awk](https://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/).
## Installation
Latest version is available at https://github.com/mdbtools/mdbtools
### Debian
```
apt install mdbtools
```
### Homebrew
```bash
brew install mdbtools
```
### MacPorts
```bash
port install mdbtools
```
### From source
If you have cloned the Git repository, you will first need to generate the
`configure` file (skip this step if you have downloaded a formal release):
```bash
$ autoreconf -i -f
```
Then:
```bash
$ ./configure
```
OR for a complete install (requires bison, flex, and unixODBC):
```bash
$ ./configure --with-unixodbc=/usr/local
```
By default, MDB Tools is linked against the copy of
[GLib](https://developer.gnome.org/glib/) returned by pkg-config. You can
point to a different GLib installation using the `GLIB_CFLAGS` and `GLIB_LIBS`
enivornment variables. Or, you can disable GLib entirely with the
`--disable-glib` flag, in which case MDB Tools will use an internal
implementation of GLib's functions.
configure can be passed any of the following flags to turn on other
capabilities. Note that the options `--with-unixodbc` and `--with-iodbc` are
mutually exclusive.
```
--with-unixodbc specifies the location of the unixODBC driver manager and
causes the unixODBC driver to be built.
--with-iodbc specifies the location of the iODBC driver manager and
causes the iODBC driver to be built.
```
By default, the ODBC driver will be installed as /usr/local/lib/odbc/libmdbodbc.so,
with a Unicode-capable driver at /usr/local/lib/odbc/libmdbodbcW.so.
A list of general options is available in the [INSTALL](./INSTALL) file, and
`configure --help` will give you the list of mdbtools specific options.
```bash
$ make
```
Once MDB Tools has been compiled, libmdb.[so|a] will be in the src/libmdb
directory and the utility programs will be in the src/util directory.
You can then install (to /usr/local by default) by running the following as root:
```bash
$ make install
```
Some systems will also need the ld cache to be updated after installation;
You can do that running:
```bash
$ ldconfig
```
## Hacking
If you are interested in helping, read the [HACKING](./HACKING) file for a description of
where the code stands and what has been gleened of the file format.
## Contact
Please send bug reports to the new github repository.
https://github.com/mdbtools/mdbtools/issues