I don't know much about MS Access, but I assume it can import CSV files. If this "dumping" is a one-shot deal for the event, could you export the data from MySQL as a CSV file (possibly using Perl), then import that into Access?

FYI, Perl can talk to Access, but I believe it needs the DBD::ODBC module to do so.

Update: Here's a little script that exports a PostgreSQL table of mine to a CSV file. You can adapt this to your MySQL table with only a couple of changes (connection string, user/pass, table name.)

#! /usr/bin/perl
use strict ;
use warnings ;

use DBI ;
use Text::CSV_XS ;

my $dbh = DBI->connect( 'DBI:Pg:dbname=odms', 'doug', '' )
  or die "Couldn't connect: $!" ;
my $csv = new Text::CSV_XS ;

my $sth = $dbh->prepare( 'select * from v_doc_list' ) ;
$sth->execute ;

while ( my $ary_ref = $sth->fetchrow_arrayref )
{
    $csv->combine( @$ary_ref )
      or warn "Error: could not construct CSV string from [@$ary_ref]"
+ ;
    print $csv->string, "\n" ;
}

$dbh->disconnect ;

exit ;
[download]

Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who
would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity.
            --Friedrich Nietzsche

Is the registration data you're trying to dump in MySQL? If so, there are a couple of ways of getting into MS Access.

One fairly easy way is to write a script to pull the data out into tab- or comma-delimited files, then download the data (as a text file through your browser) an import into Access. Text::CSV might be of help.

A more complicated approach is to pull data out of MySQL and create an Excel spreadsheet using Spreadsheet::WriteExcel. This is probably overkill.

I have searched for a way of connecting to a MSAccess database from *nix and have never found any way other than ODBC.

The problem I think is in the dlls that are required for queries to the database. In terms of writing data to MSExcel files typically people use the Win32::OLE, a host of Spreadsheet modules or the DBD-Excel method.. but I haven't tried this on anything that is not a MS platform though.

Can you not dunp the data to a MySQL db and just create a web front end for you boss to use..? although you did mention not really wanting to have to write another admin script.

Update: Have you thought about dumping the data to XML at all..?

Run Access on a Unix box? Now that's something I'd like to see :) Have you tried WINE? I haven't heard of anything that can access Access files except Access - specifically msjet*.dll.

rdfield

What about using WIn::OLE to connect to the ACCESS database.

Now if you are running the Unix box and your boss has the Win then one option would be to compile the perl script into a standalone script and drop it on your bosses system. Then when he wants to update the database, or you what to do it just log on and run the script.

MySQL <-> Perl <-> Win::OLE <-> ACCESS