[Solved] Porting AOO Base to a web host

[PdxStan]

I have a friend who has collected information about historical personae using OpenOffice Database. Nothing big...about 1500 records & 2 MB total file size. She wants to have this info accessible to anyone via a website. There won't be much traffic.

How is this done? And recommendations for a hosting service that can do this? TIA.

[Villeroy]

There is no such thing as a "Base database". Base is just a frontend. It is always connected to some type of backend indicated in the status bar of the database window. Probably you are talking about "embedded HSQLDB" which is a 10 year old version of http://hsqldb.org/ and is not connectable by any other tool because database drivers support databases that are not embedded in office documents.

Since office documents are zip archives, you can easily extract the database out of the document.
[Python] Macro to extract and reconnect embedded HSQLDB extracts the database and reconnects the Base document to the extracted copy. The extracted HSQLDB is connectable via JDBC.

[PdxStan]

>There is no such thing as a "Base database"

This is confusing, because openoffice.org/product/base.html states: "When a personal use database is all you need, Base offers the full HSQL relational database engine..."

Should I be asking what is the easiest way to get a HSQL relational database onto a website?

Thanx.

[Villeroy]

Once you have extracted the HSQLDB, you can use it as documented on http://hsqldb.org/ independently from any office suite. HSQL is just a database like MySQL or PostgreSQL. It can be used to feed web-sites if you know how to do that (most people don't).

Rename the .odb file to .zip, extract the database directory out of the zip archive and rename the contained files so they all get the same name prefix:
script --> mydb.script
properties --> mydb.properties
data --> mydb.data
backup --> mydb.backup

Now you have a stand-alone database which works independently from any office.
Download the HSQL software package and read the documentation. For an administrator or developer it works more or less like any other database.