A summary of MySQL iODBC MacOS Installation

#macos #mysql #odbc #excel

This is a summary mainly for myself (to find later if lost or need a newly mac setup) and also to anyone who want to connect to a mysql database and run queries in Microsoft Excel. More specifically described and main author and content created by Stefan Schaffner without whom I would not be able to get this working. (Content Link)

Download and install the latest stable version of iODBC for MacOS. You can't go wrong with the DMG file. http://www.iodbc.org/dataspace/doc/iodbc/wiki/iodbcWiki/Downloads
Download and install the latest version of ODBC MySQL connector and same as before DMG file works fine. https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/odbc/
Now for the main part, as Microsoft office runs in a sandbox in MacOS it can't get access to any ODBC install paths and that's a real pain for us all. What we need is to move the ODBC installation to /library which was originally in /usr/local. So a simple script made by samsgit's Github Comment works like a charm. So what I did,

$ sudo nano odbc

Copy and paste the whole script. Created by samsgit,

#!/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"

Save the file and run the following command to give executable permission,

$ sudo chmod a+x odbc

Now just let the magic happen by running the script,

$ ./odbc

Finally, just open your iODBC Administrator from applications. Now Add a new User DSN > Select a Driver example:MySQL ODBC 8.0 Unicode Driver > Give a name and set keys for user, password, server, database and port.
Now we are good to go. Open excel > Data > New Database Query > Select your saved DSN. Now you just write your query and enjoy your report in you Microsoft Excel on MacOS.