SimpleCSV()

I know there are already plenty of examples out there on how to concatenate records or child records into a delimited string, but I also see this request often enough in the forums that I wanted to have one place to point them to for a possible solution.

The following is just a simple function most users and developers can add to their database to quickly produce a delimited string of records they would like to combine. I purposely made it simple because all the bells and whistles, such as sorting the list or accepting listboxes as arguments, are already available on other websites, so there's really no need for me to reinvent the wheel for those.

To use this function, just pass a "SELECT" SQL statement and an optional delimiter to it. The power of this simple function is really in the creativity of your SQL statement. Please note there are no error handlers, so you'll have to add your own.

As always, I appreciate any comments you may have. Thank you.

Public Function SimpleCSV(strSQL As String, _
   Optional strDelim As String = ",") As String
'Returns a comma delimited string of all the records
' in the SELECT SQL statement
'Source: http://accessmvp.com/thedbguy
'v1.0 - 8/20/2013

Dim db As DAO.Database
Dim rs As DAO.Recordset
Dim strCSV As String

Set db = CurrentDb()
Set rs = db.OpenRecordset(strSQL, dbOpenSnapshot)

'Concatenate the first (and should be the only one)
' field from the SQL statement
With rs
 Do While Not .EOF
  strCSV = strCSV & strDelim & .Fields(0)
  .MoveNext
 Loop
 .Close
End With

'Remove the leading delimiter and return the result
SimpleCSV = Mid$(strCSV, Len(strDelim) + 1)

Set rs = Nothing
Set db = Nothing

End Function

Original post date: August 21, 2013