access FoxPro files without ODBC

[Alex Martelli]

"M.-A. Lemburg" <mal at lemburg.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.980420556.5303.python-list at python.org...
    [snip]
> If you are on Windows, then you can download the ODBC driver
> package from MS (it includes the Foxpro ODBC driver AFAIK)
> and is called MDAC.

This may not true be any more... ODBC is a 'mature' (obsolescent)
technology from MS's viewpoint, and they're gradually removing
ODBC support from the MDAC's latest releases (which are needed
to work with newer MS systems, such as Win/2000 and Win/ME).
[http://www.microsoft.com/data/odbc/default.htm has a "latest
update" timestamp that's almost two years old...:-(].

I'm having to struggle with this 'just as we speak', because
the latest-released ODBC driver for Jet (aka 'Access database')
introduces a nasty bug (a computed-column is SQLDescribe'd as
being of length 2 billion+ bytes if it's a varchar...!) -- that
is the ODBC-for-Jet you have if you have installed MDAC 2.5 SP1,
or Windows/2000 SP1, etc.  MDAC 2.6 has *no* ODBC-for-Jet...
nor can the latest one, fixing this, be had from anywhere, it
seems, except as a 'hot-fix' (read: not well-tested) from MS
support directly (we'll have to open a co$tly support call,
as we have legacy stuff depending on ODBC and Jet that must
now be run under Win2k/SP1, darn... I *knew* we should have
recoded it with ADO and MSDE, but that's hard to justify when
it's old stuff, never changed any more, as long as it runs...).


Anyway, this is a FAQ in the MDAC 2.6 page at Microsoft...:

 My application requires the Microsoft Visual FoxPro® ODBC Driver,
 but it is no longer included in MDAC. Where can I get it?

 The Visual Fox Pro ODBC driver is shipped with Visual FoxPro,
 Microsoft Windows® 2000, Microsoft Office 2000, and MDAC 2.5.

Just remember you cannot install (at least in theory) MDAC 2.5
on the newest systems -- I don't know what you're supposed to
do if you must run ODBC-to-Foxpro in Win/ME (I _suspect_ that
getting 2.5 anyway and some manual kludging may get you home
anyway, but, it's an issue of luck).


Alex