Question

I have an Access file on a server which my colleagues will update regularly and sometimes I need to analyze the data by the following method:

1. download the Access file to my local drive
2. export the table to MySQL
3. open the MySQL table through R to do the analysis

This workflow is OK if I only have to do it once, but it’s getting more often that I find data is missing inside the dataset, I asked the colleagues to fix it, and then I need to go over step 1-3 again, and I feel it is kinda dumb to do the 1-3 steps over and over again.

Since the Access file on server is password protected and I don’t want the mess with that file, I wonder if I can created another Access file, that acts as a link between my local MySQL server and that Access file. When I launch R, data will be extracted from the MySQL server, go to my “link” Access file, and go to the Access file on server, and everytime the data I get from R is the latest version.

I wonder if I have explained it clear enough, and I have no clue how to work this out, can anyone here inspire me? Thanks!

Answer 1

Try:

> install.packages("RODBC")
> vignette("RODBC")