ODBC: connect from oracle to filmaker pro 7 to extract data

Question

sorry for the cross post, i posted this in th ODBC forum, but that's in the windows.net subhead, so idunno.
here is is again:
we have a filemaker pro server and some of the data needs to be imported weekly into an oracle database.
my understanding is this can be done and it is roughed out in the "FileMaker 7 ODBC and JDBC Developer's Guide"...available here if anyone is interested:http://filemaker.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/filemaker.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=5337
however, i know nothing about oracle, but i don't need to since there are people on staff to deal with that. i am presenting this connection option as the best way for the oracle guys here to get the data they need. the other option is for them (non-filemaker savvy people) doing exports and importing them into oracle. they don't want to do this because they don't like filemaker. i believe this whole process would be easier if i keep the oracle guys in what they know and love, oracle. once the extract was properly set up it could be done as cron job. all done.
so my question is, how would one accomplish this?
broad strokes that i could give to the oracle people to direct them.
i figure they could build a small custom app to do this, but i have no idea what is involved with that. or, perhaps the oracle application has the ability to run scripts?
any pointers would be helpful.
thanks!

Answer 1

You can use Filemaker's built-in ODBC capability to push data from the FMP database into Oracle. Then you as a FMP developer can take responsibility for getting the data into Oracle and the Oracle guys don't have to deal with FMP at all.
You will need an ODBC driver for Oracle, and an ODBC DSN configured for connecting to the Oracle database. Then you will need to write a simple FMP script that traverses the FMP records you want to push and generate a SQL string that you pass to the Execute SQL script step. Here is an example:
Go to Record/Request/Page [First]
Loop
Execute SQL [No dialog; DSN: myDSN;
Calculated SQL Text: "UPDATE products_description
SET products_viewed=" & myFMPDatabase::Products_Viewed
& " WHERE products_id=" & myFMPDatabase::Products_ID]
Go to Record/Request/Page [Next; Exit after last]
End Loop
This assumes that you have an account with write access to the Oracle database, you understands its schema, and have enough knowledge of SQL to write simple INSERT / UPDATE statements.
Jonathan Monroe
Actual Technologies - ODBC for Mac OS X
http://www.actualtechnologies.com
[email protected]