[libreoffice-users] Base - using external database tables

Hi

OK, let me go back to square 1.

First of all I am not talking about a situation in which LibreOffice 
base needs to access data tables in separate files that use different 
database structures, e.g. one table is in MySQL and another is in 
PostgreSQL.  This may be something that others need and I seem to recall 
that M$ access could do this but I do not need to.

Next, terminology because "database" can mean a number of things. 
Please correct me if I am wrong here.  The data are contained in tables. 
These can be simple tables such as CSV tables or more complex tables 
constructed according to the rules of a particular database application. 
 These tables can be in separate files or they may be embedded along 
with other information.

Then there are such things as queries, forms, reports and configurations 
which could, I guess, be each in separate files but are normally saved 
embedded together or with, say a data table.  The results of running 
these, if saved, will be data tables or reports in separate files.

Finally there is the database application which may be in one or many files.

Now, to my situation.  First of all I am using Debian GNU/Linux testing 
distribution.  I use LibreOffice and for my database needs I use base. 
I use the built in HSQLDB database application and have my data tables 
embedded in the .odb file.

This has worked adequately (clunkily I would say, but I will keep other 
difficulties out of this discussion).  However, base has recently become 
unusably slow in response to something that has changed in openjdk (I 
have asked about this elsewhere).

This has prompted me to revisit the question of whether to separate out 
my data tables.  I am wondering whether it might be a workaround for the 
slowness problem.  Also there may be advantages in backing up data 
separately and having it less vulnerable to anything going wrong in 
LibreOffice.

My data consist of a list of names, addresses etc. in one table and then 
some other tables that have additional information that only applies to 
(overlapping) subsets of the people in the names etc. table.

Way back in the past I used M$ access to handle these data.  At that 
time my data tables were each in a separate file and everything worked 
very well.

When I moved over to OpenOffice.org I found that this was no longer 
possible.  In order to run queries using data from different tables (all 
using the same database structure) I found I needed to embed all the 
tables into the same .odb files.

So my question is, is this still the same in LibreOffice?

More specifically, is it possible only using base, i.e. without running 
a separate database application, to access, run queries across and 
manipulate the data in data tables contained in separate files?  I am 
assuming the these would probably be HSQLDB data tables.

If not, would it be possible if the data tables were embedded in the 
same file?

If either of these are possible then some pointers to how to separate 
out the data tables would be helpful.

Kind regards

John


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