Is there a way to get ADODB to work with Excel for Mac 2011?

Question

I can not seem to get my Excel workbook (using ADODB) to work with Excel Mac 2011. I am using ADODB code. Are there add-ins available? Even from a third-party? Has anyone go

Answer 1

There are 2 pieces to getting Mac Excel to query MySQL: (1) the VBA and (2) the ODBC driver.

---

(1) The VBA for creating a table from a query (and updating it with a new query):

Option Explicit

Sub WaitQueryTableRefresh(ByVal qt As QueryTable)
    While qt.Refreshing
        Application.Wait (Now + TimeValue("0:00:01"))
    Wend
End Sub

Sub ErrorIfQueryTableOverflowed(ByVal qt As QueryTable)
    If qt.FetchedRowOverflow Then
        err.Raise 5, "ErrorIfQueryTableOverflowed", _
            "QueryTable '" & qt.ListObject.Name & "' returned more rows than can fit in the spreadsheet range"
    End If
End Sub

' Create a table from scratch
Function CreateTableFromSql( _
 ByVal table_sheet As Worksheet, _
 ByVal table_range As Range, _
 ByVal table_name As String, _
 ByVal sql As String _
 ) As ListObject
    ' table_range is simply the top-left, corner cell for the table

    'ListObject.SourceType
        'https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/microsoft.office.interop.excel.xllistobjectsourcetype?view=excel-pia

    'QueryTable.CommandType
        'https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/vba/api/Excel.QueryTable.CommandType

    'QueryTable.BackgroundQuery
        'https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/vba/api/excel.querytable.backgroundquery

    'QueryTable.RefreshStyle
        'https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/vba/api/excel.xlcellinsertionmode

    'QueryTable.PreserveColumnInfo
        'https://stackoverflow.com/a/28621172
        'https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/vba/api/Excel.QueryTable.PreserveColumnInfo

    Dim global_odbc_str As String
    global_odbc_str = "ODBC;DSN=my_dsn_name;"

    Dim qt As QueryTable
    Set qt = table_sheet.ListObjects.Add( _
        SourceType:=xlSrcExternal, _
        Source:=global_odbc_str, _
        Destination:=table_range _
    ).QueryTable

    With qt
        .ListObject.Name = table_name
        .ListObject.DisplayName = table_name
        .CommandText = sql
        .RowNumbers = False
        .FillAdjacentFormulas = False
        .PreserveFormatting = True
        .RefreshOnFileOpen = False
        .BackgroundQuery = False
        .RefreshStyle = xlInsertDeleteCells
        .SavePassword = False
        .SaveData = True
        .AdjustColumnWidth = True
        .RefreshPeriod = 0
        .PreserveColumnInfo = False
        .Refresh BackgroundQuery:=False
    End With

    Call WaitQueryTableRefresh(qt)
    Call ErrorIfQueryTableOverflowed(qt)

    Set CreateTableFromSql = qt.ListObject
End Function

' Update a table (columns do not have to be the same)
Sub UpdateTableFromSql( _
 ByVal table As ListObject, _
 ByVal sql As String _
 )
    Dim qt As QueryTable
    Set qt = table.QueryTable

    qt.CommandText = sql
    qt.Refresh BackgroundQuery:=False

    Call WaitQueryTableRefresh(qt)
    Call ErrorIfQueryTableOverflowed(qt)
End Sub

---

(2) Configuring the MySQL ODBC driver (free)

Install according to MySQL docs:

(a) Install (dependency) iODBC Admin: http://www.iodbc.org/dataspace/doc/iodbc/wiki/iodbcWiki/Downloads

(b) Install MySQL ODBC driver: https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/odbc/

(c) Mac requires all apps (including Excel) to be quarantined to a sandbox. Because of this, you need to relocate the MySQL driver to a place where Excel can access it. The symptom of failing to do this is that the DSN connection will Test successfully in iODBC but will fail to Test in Excel's ODBC.

Relocate the driver according to this:

#!/bin/bash

# https://github.com/openlink/iODBC/issues/29
# https://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=89931

base_src_dir="/usr/local"
mysql_odbc_name=$(ls "$base_src_dir" | grep -m 1 "mysql-connector-odbc")
odbc_dir="/Library/ODBC"

src="$base_src_dir/$mysql_odbc_name/lib"
dst="$odbc_dir/$mysql_odbc_name/lib"

echo "creating '$dst'"
sudo mkdir -p "$dst"

echo "copying '$src' to '$dst'"
sudo cp -af "$src/." "$dst"


odbc_ini_path="$odbc_dir/odbc.ini"
odbc_ini_bak_path="$odbc_ini_path.bak"

odbcinst_ini_path="$odbc_dir/odbcinst.ini"
odbcinst_ini_bak_path="$odbcinst_ini_path.bak"

echo "backing up '$odbc_ini_path' to '$odbc_ini_bak_path'"
sudo cp -f "$odbc_ini_path" "$odbc_ini_bak_path"

echo "backing up '$odbcinst_ini_path' to '$odbcinst_ini_bak_path'"
sudo cp -f "$odbcinst_ini_path" "$odbcinst_ini_bak_path"

# https://stackoverflow.com/a/29626460
function replace {
  sudo sed -i '' "s/$(sed 's/[^^]/[&]/g; s/\^/\\^/g' <<< "$1")/$(sed 's/[&/\]/\\&/g' <<< "$2")/g" "$3"
}

ansi_driver=$(ls "$dst" | grep -m 1 "^lib.*a\.so$")
unicode_driver=$(ls "$dst" | grep -m 1 "^lib.*w\.so$")

old_ansi_path="$src/$ansi_driver"
new_ansi_path="$dst/$ansi_driver"

old_unicode_path="$src/$unicode_driver"
new_unicode_path="$dst/$unicode_driver"

echo "updating '$old_ansi_path' to '$new_ansi_path' in '$odbc_ini_path'"
replace "$old_ansi_path" "$new_ansi_path" "$odbc_ini_path"

echo "updating '$old_ansi_path' to '$new_ansi_path' in '$odbcinst_ini_path'"
replace "$old_ansi_path" "$new_ansi_path" "$odbcinst_ini_path"

echo "updating '$old_unicode_path' to '$new_unicode_path' in '$odbc_ini_path'"
replace "$old_unicode_path" "$new_unicode_path" "$odbc_ini_path"

echo "updating '$old_unicode_path' to '$new_unicode_path' in '$odbcinst_ini_path'"
replace "$old_unicode_path" "$new_unicode_path" "$odbcinst_ini_path"

The above was tested on High Sierra with Excel 2016.