[libreoffice-users] Re: Writing programs for Base

You are right. It is a mere frontend. Mainly it is a bridge between tabular
data and office document. Tabular data include address books from various
mail clients, csv, dBase, spreadsheets and all kinds of databases via ODBC,
JDBC or some built-in driver (SDBC). When the mail merge wizard creates a
serial letter for you it creates a Base document even when you specify a
spreadsheet list as address source.
In OOo 2.0 they invented the infamous "integrated database document" which
includes a http://hsqldb.org of version 1.8 zipped into the Base document,
installed every time you "open the database document" and repackaged every
time you "close the database document". No need to say that this database is
a pain in the ass, particularly when it trashes your precious data.
Base connected with some mature external database (and hsqldb is not a bad
choice) is a simple database frontend if you are aware that "simple" may be
the opposite of "easy". The main data flow goes from databases to office
documents.
You can attach simplistic input forms to office documents in order to send
data the other way from the office to the database.
Normally, I do not need any macros at all.
Your requirement for updating a databse from csv has not so much to do with
a database frontend. Of course you can do this programmatically with some
database frontend. Writing such frontend animal will be a horror trip for
sure. MS Access is much better prepared for such things and Steve Edmonds
already confirmed the backend story from a professional point of view. Some
database, some data, some scripting language, no office monster. When work
is done load the results into pretty reports, spreadsheet models, even
presentation tables can receive database data.

In my previous answer I outlined a non-programmatic way how to do such
things in the Base user interface without a single line of code but with a
little bit of setup and a few more clicks for each import.

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