FileMaker Mac OS X ODBC Client Driver

[cjaeger]

Yesterday, FileMAker made available the long awaited ODBC client support in MacOS X.

Only there is no documentation. The install file refers to the Help files and related info on FileMakers Web site. But there is none (but the statement that ODBC Client is Win only).

Did anybody have success in installing it?

It would be of great use if it supported the "CREATE TABLE" command like Windows ODBC client driver does ...

[Lee Willoughby]

Yes, Christian, I was able to install and configure the new FM 7 ODBC Client for Mac OS X. My first attempt using Apple's ODBC Administrator was unsuccessful. OpenLink ODBC Administrator 3.52.1 has a "Test" function which enabled me to determine what needed fixing.

Then I used Excel and FM 7 from a remote Mac OS X laptop to access my database. Were you talking about using CREATE TABLE to make a new table in the hosted database? I didn't note anything like that.

best wishes,

Lee

[mooP]

Hey Lee

Can you put up some instructions on what you did to get the OpenLink ODBC Administrator to work with the new drivers?

Thanks

Michael

[FossilFM]

Hi Lee,

Could you post some instructions on how to install/setup ODBC in Mac OS X? I too have been unsuccessful in installing/seting up ODBC ni Mac OS X.

Thanks.

[Lee Willoughby]

mooP and FossilFM,

I've put together a web page which summarizes my successful effort to get the new ODBC client driver from FM to work.

Configuring FM 7 ODBC Client Driver

let me know if there are followup questions and/or whether you got it working,

Lee

[Kirk Royster]

I reviewed your posting with details on configuring the new OSX Client ODBC driver. I went down a similar path, configured it using the OSX Administrator (because the OpenLink administrator would not work when I tried configuring it there), and then went to the OpenLink Admin to try to test it. The OpenLink Admin tool crashes immediately when trying to perform the test!

Here's a catch (difference) with what I was trying to test:

- the "server" for me was FM Pro 7 with ODBC access enabled, running on Windows XP.

- FM tech support indicates that while this mode is not supported, that it could work.

- I don't have FM 7 Adv Server at this point; so wanted to confirm this stuff works before spending the cash.

I'm on OSX 10.3.9 on the Powerbook G4 that I was using to configure the OSX ODBC Client.

Any feedback?

[Burni]

I thought I knew how to set up a ODBC DSN but this has totally got me - Has anyone got/seen a step by step guide to this? The link above skips quite a lot of the set-up and filemaker supplies zero installation instructions.

The driver shows up in ODBC admin but has a file size of 0k. When I go through set up I don't get anykind of connection dialog as i do with other ODBC drivers and all FileMaker wants to say is xDBC service cannot be started - HELP!

[FossilFM]

Is setting up ODBC Client Driver the same as setting up the FileMaker Server to provide support for ODBC. What I would like is to be able to perform sql statements against the tables(files) being served by FileMaker.

I'm having the hardest time setting up the FileMaker Server to provide support with ODBC. FileMaker has very very limited documentation on this.

Hopefully someone can shed more light on this.

[AdamMorris]

You don't need to set up the ODBC client driver on the SERVER in order to make FM databases available as ODBC sources.

You DO have to install the xDBC plugin however.

First, make the server capable of handling ODBC/JDBC connections. It's a checkbox in the Admin tool, I believe it's on the databases configuration tab.

Be sure to stop the FM server before you copy the files (I think they go in/Library/FileMaker 7 Server/Extensions/Plugins or something close...check the read me file that came with the latest version of the plugin).

This is kind of a pain because in order to get it to work, you have to set the file permissions, group, and ownership for each folder and file in the plugin - and there are about 20 - 30 files and folders. Group and Owner should be the same FM group and owner you use for making your databases accessible (fmserver and fmuser or something to that effect). Group and owner need r/w access. If you're comfortable doing this with Unix commands it may be easier to do it that way.

Once you've got the plugin installed, and all the ownership set up, you must reboot the server.

Once the FM server is running again, go to a client machine and open each file you want to use with ODBC/JDBC, and add the [fmxdbc] extende privelege to each account that will use ODBC/JDBC access.

Hope that helped!

And for the record, I couldn't get ODBC to work on the Mac either. I gave up and messed with JDBC instead since I was writing Java code.

[cjaeger]

After having expirienced initial problems, I now feel quite comfortable with FileMaker ODBC. I am running FMP6 and FMP7 on the same machine an can add/delete/etc tables in FMP7 using info gathered from all open dbs in FileMaker 6. No need for perl, just some Design Functions, FileMaker Scripting plus a little AppleScript and you can migrate/join tables from 6 to 7 and 7 to 7 (by running a second copy of FMP 6 or FMP7 with ODBC client sharing NOT installed).

Hint: Take the FileMaker (6) Documentor somewhere in the forums as a start, and translate the results into SQL queries. Or use DDR and XSL to generate the tables.

If anyone wants to start here and share it open source, I will be glad to help as time permits.