Sharepoint: Connect to Access DB (.accdb) in document library

Question

I have a site where a database is placed inside a document library. I need to extract data from this database and show in a webpart.

Is there a Sharepoint-specific way of doing this, or I simply connect normally with a regular connection string and just point it at the filename in the document library, eg: http://spsite/doclib/database.accdb?

I do not need to pull this data very often, so if there's overhead from "fetching" the database from the document library and into memory that can be overlooked. It just seems as though SP should have a built-in feature to access data.

I tried searching for how to get Sharepoint 2007 to show data from an access database, but to no avail.

(Note: I have no problem with the connection string, SQL, showing the data, etc. - the problem is how to connect to the database so I can execute the queries)

Answer 1

If the table of data is simple, then consider exporting the table from Access to a SharePoint list. Access supports links to SharePoint lists. So, you can deploy the Access client application to each persons desktop, but the data (the list) will remain on sharepoint. Since the list is a standard list, then the standard SharePoint tools and code can use that list like any other list.

I do not believe that you can open and pull data from a table inside of the accDB file, but Access can certainly link to a SharePoint list and thus any user who grabs a copy of Access will thus be editing the data in a SharePoint list.