(dumb?) MySQL frontend question

[Golden Ape]

Afternoon there. Right I should start by saying that I'm a complete noob when it comes to MySQL and I have a question that will probably show just how much of a noob I am! I'm planning on using MySQL to hold a load of data that I need to get at with Matlab. Much to my suprise I've managed to get MySQL installed and have sorted out a way to make Matlab talk. All good so far. Now the only thing I need to do is get the data into MySQL in the first place. Currently the data is all writen on paper so I know I'm going to have to enter it by hand.

My question is this: is there any nice front end that I can use to enter this data (something that might look a bit like Access or Excel so I can just type out the rows one after another) or am I going to have to do it all by using the appropriate INSERT commands? I guess I could write a Matlab program to make it a bit easier but this seems like a lot of extra work. Any ideas?

 

[TomaHawk]

Looks like you need phpMyAdmin..

Hope that helps.

It's not quite Excel or Access but definitely a great front end for data stored within a MySQL database.

 

[Beansprout]

Use Excel - setup the columns in the same order as the database - save as a tab-separated file and use MySQL's LOAD DATA INFILE command to insert all the rows - something along the lines of this:

LOAD DATA INFILE 'filename.txt' INTO TABLE tablename;
FIELDS TERMINATED BY '\t' ENCLOSED BY '' ESCAPED BY '\\'

 

[robmiller]

The Excel way will be the best way. There are lots of mySQL frontends but they're not really intended for what you're doing, but rather for general administration purposes---creating and deleting tables, updating or deleting the odd row, etc. Excel is much nicer for mass input.

 

[Inquisitor]

Aye, Excel is the way to go. I used Excel to import 3700 records yesterday, piece of cake

 

[Golden Ape]

Ah fantastic, thanks everyone. I'd never have thought that I could go via Excel. Sounds much easier than I thought!