Normally an .sql file is just a text file with a lot of sql statements to be executed.
So if you run it with notepad you can see the text.
If you need to run the sql statements in Access, there probably is some kind of sql editor in access where you can copy paste the statements and execute them.
Beware though that it might not be possible to execute mysql statements on the access database without problems, since there could be some differences in the syntax. If you have problems, you can post the statements here and I can see if I can help you.
good luck

It's actually meant to be a data file, backing up several tables in a mysql database. It's generated by a backup plugin integrated into wordpress. On opening it in notepad, I get lots of non-alpha characters, so I don't think it's sql query statements. What I'm trying to get at is the data.

I did find a site with some user-friendly install instructions for mysql for windows, so I'm exploring that as an option to open the file and get at the data. Seems fairly straightforward: http://www.analysisandsolutions.com/code...

Okay, now I've installed mysql and it's not particularly evident how I could use it to open or access the data in this file. The help files in mysql seem to be about anything but. Am I barking up the wrong tree here? Any thoughts?

did you try opening it with wordpad or word? it might just be the text-format that's making trouble...

did you install phpmyadmin to administrate the mysql database?
in there is a "Import" function that allows you to upload an .sql file.

I agree with theDude that a .sql file should be a text file that contains all the data incorporated in sql syntax INSERT statements, so that mysql - for instance through phpmyadmin - can import it easily.

If you cannot see the data with a text viewer, then it's either using a different character encoding, it's corrupt or maybe it's zip-compressed.

phpmyadmin does have import and export functions that compresses the sql files with zip, so wordpress might have done the same. I recommend to install phpmyadmin and try to import it.

jakob

Okay I'll try intsalling phpmyadmin and go from there. The file was zipped, but it's been unzipped now.

Sorry, I am not completely clear on what you try to achive and what you actually did. Please correct me if I am wrong. You did a backup of a MySql database (or table) using wordpress. This resulted in a .sql file. This .sql file can't be opened in i.e. Notepad.

What I guess is, that wordpress is using a .sql suffix for the backup file but it actually isn't a text based .sql file. If you do a backup using MySql administrator, you will get a text based sql file which you can open in Notepad. I assume that this wordpress sql file is a wordpress specific format and can only be used in wordpress. Sorry. I do not have any experience in wordpress. But I have some experience in MySQL.

I recommend to use MySql administrator (download here: http://www.mysql.org/downloads/gui-tools...), create a backup of the table. This will result in a text based sql file. Then you can create a blank database in MS Access, open a query, set the view to SQL and cut and paste the sql text from the backup file into this query. You can try and run it but be prepared that there are some differences between the SQL syntax of MySql and MS Access.

Let us know how you get on!

Cheers

Peter