List Table Fields

I recently needed a way to list all the table fields from an Access database project, so I could export it into Excel and format it for the user's review (just to make sure I covered all the user's requirements). Unfortunately, all I found, looking around for a utility to do it, was a way to print a report showing all the fields. Unless I simply miissed it, I couldn't find one that exports it to Excel for further consumption. So, I decided to create this demo.

This demo is similar to my other "list" demos where you get to browse for the database file and clicking a button will populate a temporary table with all the information gathered from the selected database. You can then export the table's data into Excel, as desired. The only difference with this new version is that it should be able to handle a password-protected file. If the selected file is password protected, the user is presented with a prompt to enter the password.

To download this demo, please click on the image below. As usual, if you have any comments or suggestions for improvements or found any bugs with this demo, please do not hesitate to let me know. I would really appreciate it.

(click on the above image to download the demo file)

Thank you for reading!

Retrieve Database (Extended) Properties

If you've ever wondered how to programmatically retrieve the information from the Summary tab when you click on "View and edit database properties" from the Info tab in Backstage View, then continue reading.

An example of the Summary tab information is shown in the image below.

If you try to loop through the CurrentDb.Properties collection, these particular properties are not present. For this reason, I consider them to be as "extended" database properties. To retrieve these extended properties, we can use a DAO object.

Here's an example code for specifically retrieving the extended properties found in the Summary tab.

Public Function GetSummaryInfo() As String
'6/10/2018
'thedbguy@gmail.com

Dim db As DAO.Database
Dim dbContainer As DAO.Container
Dim dbDocument As DAO.Document
Dim dbProperty As DAO.Property

Set db = CurrentDb()
Set dbContainer = db.Containers("Databases")
Set dbDocument = dbContainer("SummaryInfo")

For Each dbProperty In dbDocument.Properties
    Debug.Print dbProperty.Name & ": " & dbProperty.Value
Next

'cleanup
Set dbDocument = Nothing
Set dbContainer = Nothing
Set db = Nothing

End Function

The above technique can also be applied to retrieve some of the extended properties found in the other tabs (like Contents, for example). To see a demo file using this technique to examine the database properties for any Access database file, click the image below.

click on the above image to download the demo

I hope you find this article useful. Please let me know if you find any bugs in the demo.

A Recordset Bug

While trying to help a MSDN Forum user recently, I came across a potential bug when using a Recordset to loop through the records in a query. If you are interested in reading the discussion thread, you can find it using this link: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/c9b98d99-083a-49fc-859a-43b9dcbd263f/combine-multiple-rows-from-a-query-into-1-row-string?forum=accessdev

The poster was trying to build a Text file from the table records for an external application. His requirement was to combine all the field values and all the records into one long text data. Naturally, when someone asks to combine all table records, I typically recommend this SimpleCSV() function. Unfortunately, the function did not work for him as it produced weird characters in the output string. See image below...

I have never run into this issue before, so I started doing some research. It turns out, when you use a Recordset with a calculated column where multiple fields are concatenated to combine the data, the calculated column only looks normal if the resulting value is less than 255 characters.

To demonstrate this issue, I created a demo file, which you can download from my website.

In the demo, I created a table with two Text fields, both containing exactly 255 characters. When we use a Recordset to pull just Field1, the result looks okay. But when we pull both Field1 and Field2 into one column in a Recordset, then we run into this issue. Interestingly enough, I also found out that using DLookup() does not produce a problem.

I brought this issue to Microsoft's attention, and it was confirmed by the Access Team. They also promised to work on a fix for future release. In the meantime, if you must combine multiple fields using a Recordset, I recommend pulling all the fields individually when you create the Recordset and then just loop through the fields and concatenate them from within your procedure.

I hope you find this article helpful. As always, any comment is welcome.

Thank you very much for reading.