We’ve set up a database in Access and would like to convert it to PHP so we can put it online without having to find a host who will require an Access license (yeah, we found some relatively cheap ones, but we wanted to get away from Access). Is there a simple way to do this that won’t require reformatting things?
I assume the db itself is a relatively quick trip over to MySQL, but how about replcaitng our front end (data entry, report running, etc.)?
Is the “front end” written in ASP? Access is a database program, MySQL is a database program. ASP is a web scripting technology that can be written in VBScript or JScript (usually VBScript) and is meant to run on a Windows server. PHP is a web scripting language that can be used on any type of server that has the PHP scripting libraries installed.
So what I think is that you’ve got a Web site built using ASP that runs off an Access database, and it’s hosted on a Windows web host. You want to move to another, cheaper host that is Linux-based and this requires you to port the entire Web site to PHP from ASP and switch databases from Access to MySQL?
If that’s the case you do need to re-program all of the ASP code to be PHP code. Google “ASP to PHP” to find tools that will automate this. I have never used one of these tools but they do exist.
If you want to move away from Access and are able to keep using ASP (either by moving to another Windows host - I have never heard of needing an “Access License” btw - or using a Linux host that can support ASP using ChiliSoft ASP) you can also use Microsoft SQL, and keep the ASP pages exactly the same, except for a few quirks here and there you might find with queries.
Alternately, you can use ASP with MySQL but you will need to make some changes to the queries. Google “ASP and MySQL” for lots of articles.
Access also includes a windows GUI builder that can be used to create an interface to a database. I assumed that was what the OP was talking about. Thus ‘putting it online’… it’s not a web scripted front end at the moment.
Making the conversion from a windows GUI front end to a web scripted one will take a bit of effort… at the moment I think the easiest one might be a vb.net front end, since that allows you to do a lot of stuff in very similar ways to msaccess forms. You can also use the dot net libraries to talk to an access back end without requiring an msaccess license I believe. But you would need to find a webhost that allows you access to dot net.
Converting to PHP would be a bit more work, but still quite doable.
And an “access license” is a windows license for the Microsoft Access software itself. Obviously, if somebody is actually using that microsoft program, they need to have a registered copy or it’s illegal. However, most ways of talking to an access database from a web server do not require such a license, which may be why you’ve never thought of it in that context, ZJJ