If you look at the result of your calculation in the data viewer, you’ll see output like this:

INSERT INTO contact_test (last_name) VALUES (Bill)

This is almost perfect, but you need to quote the first name. The formula to do that would look like this (hard to read!):

"INSERT INTO contact_test (last_name) VALUES ('" & people::fname & "')"

Which yields:

INSERT INTO contact_test (last_name) VALUES ('Bill')

Unfortunately, a single quote next to a double quote in the FileMaker calculation dialog can be exceptionally hard to see, which makes writing calculations like this error prone. To solve this, we use a handful of custom functions. For example:

SqlString(value, nullIfEmpty) :=
   if (IsEmpty(value) and nullIfEmpty; "NULL"; "'" & Substitute(value, "'", "\\'") & "'" )

Now your calculation can look like this:

"INSERT INTO contact_test (last_name) VALUES (" & SqlString(people::fname, false) & ")"

Which, to my eye, is much easier to read (and therefore less error prone).

Hope it helps,

Geoff

One way or another I cant get the exact syntax correct. I have it sending the SQL to MYSQL but I always get a MYSQL error coming back – it has something to do with the use of &’s and single and double quotes.

Once I get it right I will make another post – likewise if anyone has got it right please let us know.

Going the other way, Data in FileMaker and replicated in SQL is an entirely different beast. It is definitely possible. I am not sure it’s easy, not having worked with it too much, but possible.

Unless anyone else has any other ideas, I would look at the SQL commands from FileMaker. You may be able to set either SEND, POST, OR EXPORT commands to get your data from FMP to SQL. Exact procedure will depend on the version of SQL you are using.

There are a number of plugins also available to automate the migration of data between the two. Trying Google-ing data migration with FileMaker and SQL. That should get you moving in the right direction.

Is there no way to do this without repeatedly exporting the entire DB every time there is an edit or change to a found Filemaker set of data?

It seemed from all the hype like this would be easy, but so far it’s entirely defeated us.

Denriddy

Geoff

With MySQL Connector 3.51.14 installed, the DSN does give the option, however there are now either “comma-in-the-field-name” errors OR the following:

“ODBC Error: [MySQL][ODBC Driver][mysqld-5.0.45]You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'mydatabase`.`mytable` LIMIT 0' at line 1″

What I find particularly interesting is the missing “`” before mydatabase. I have experienced trouble importing data from MS Access Databases without these.

In my case, the ODBC connection was on a Windows XP Professional installation (UK), but I don’t know whether that is relevant here.