MS Access Question

[SP33Demon]

Hi all,

I was wondering if Access had a way to store separate text files in a database? I don't think it's possible, but maybe somebody knows?

Thanks,

Speed

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: SP33Demon
Hi all,

I was wondering if Access had a way to store separate text files in a database? I don't think it's possible, but maybe somebody knows?

Thanks,

Speed

If your question is whether or not Access is capable of storing text "files" in a database... the answer is yes. You could store up to 64kb of text in a Memo field, or more than that in an OLE Object field.

If you're asking how to get the text file in there programmatically... I have no idea how to do it with Access/VBA, but it wouldn't be difficult to do with VB.

 

[bamacre]

If you want to export the text file into a table, that's easy. Go to File - Get External Data -Import , and go from there. If you want this updated regularly, you can do a simple macro that would open the table, delete all old info, and import the new text file.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Google "Access BLOB" (Binary Large OBject) but a memo field will work too. Google should find hundreds of code snapples.

 

[austin316]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Google "Access BLOB" (Binary Large OBject) but a memo field will work too. Google should find hundreds of code snapples.

I found that Access has a lot of trouble with storing binary data into a table. Your best bets are to use a memo field if you just want to store alot of text, or if you must store the file, then just upload the file to your server and save the path to it in your database.

 

[SP33Demon]

Originally posted by: austin316

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Google "Access BLOB" (Binary Large OBject) but a memo field will work too. Google should find hundreds of code snapples.

I found that Access has a lot of trouble with storing binary data into a table. Your best bets are to use a memo field if you just want to store alot of text, or if you must store the file, then just upload the file to your server and save the path to it in your database.

Thanks for all of the suggestions guys. austin, I was thinking along the same lines as you, because the text will have to be formatted. My last resort was to save the path to the file, but if possible I didn't want to have a bunch of text files floating around!

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: SP33Demon

Originally posted by: austin316

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Google "Access BLOB" (Binary Large OBject) but a memo field will work too. Google should find hundreds of code snapples.

I found that Access has a lot of trouble with storing binary data into a table. Your best bets are to use a memo field if you just want to store alot of text, or if you must store the file, then just upload the file to your server and save the path to it in your database.

Thanks for all of the suggestions guys. austin, I was thinking along the same lines as you, because the text will have to be formatted. My last resort was to save the path to the file, but if possible I didn't want to have a bunch of text files floating around!

Depending on your programming skills, just have one text file and use each record in the access table to contain the description, index for the start and size of the file section. (Similar to like a page break).

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: EagleKeeper

Depending on your programming skills, just have one text file and use each record in the access table to contain the description, index for the start and size of the file section. (Similar to like a page break).

Wouldn't that be a pain to do an update query on? Assuming you'd want to be able to change the contents of the text files. Any time you changed the length of one "file" you'd have to update the start location of every file that comes after it.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: EagleKeeper

Depending on your programming skills, just have one text file and use each record in the access table to contain the description, index for the start and size of the file section. (Similar to like a page break).

Wouldn't that be a pain to do an update query on? Assuming you'd want to be able to change the contents of the text files. Any time you changed the length of one "file" you'd have to update the start location of every file that comes after it.

It would be a pain. However, it is just a number being offset.
The code will either have to calculate the offsets based on the length of text every time it needs to be accessed, or re-calculate the index starting point of all sub-files after a modification point whenver a modification of size is done.

Seems to be only two ways around the requirement of not wanting multiple text files.

I would personally use multiple text files in a dedicated directory.