Re: pgodbc + Excel + msquery + background refresh

On 10/10/07, Ow Mun Heng <Ow(dot)Mun(dot)Heng(at)wdc(dot)com> wrote:
> Just wonder if anyone here uses Excel to connect to PG via ODBC.
>
> I'm using it extensively as my platform to get data from PG/MSSQL
> directly into excel. (Excel uses the msqry32.exe file which is like a
> stripped down sql query tool and returns data directly into excel)
>
> When using mssql, connecting from excel to mssql, I can get the query to
> run in the background. Hence, a long running query will not interfere
> with normal running of other excel works. Eg: Create new sheets,
> graphing etc.

Basically, MS has programmed Excel to use a cursor when it connects to
MSSQL. The generic PGODBC connection in excel doesn't know how to do
this apparently.

I'm not sure if the problem is in pgodbc or excel. I'd tend to guess
excel. Microsoft might be willing to work on making Excel work better
with PostgreSQL, but I wouldn't expect it to be a priority, as they
sell a competing product and this just makes it look better.