Lately, I've been finding myself using the Try pattern more and more. I really like this pattern because it makes for much more readable code. This is especially important when programming in a mature programming language like VBA where the error handling is intertwined with the control flow. Genera [...]

Heterogeneous queries is the reason why connection strings, especially ad-hoc connection string are important. In previous articles of the series, you saw how you could customize the connection parameters for connecting to Excel and text files. In the case of the text files, you can also describe th [...]

Access provides a second method of describing text files' schema by using system tables MSysIMEXSpecs and MSysIMEXColumns to save the specifications. In the previous article, I covered how schema.ini can be used to describe a text file's structure. The schema.ini involved an external text file impli [...]

Making a schema.ini to open or link text files from Access is one of two possible methods that can be used to work with data contained in the files from Access. In the previous article, we looked at the text file's connection string parameters. We also discussed the need to have additional schema in [...]

In the previous article I covered the connection string parameters for Excel data sources. We will now focus on the text files. There are different methods for describing text files' schema and using the information during opening or linking in Access. While Excel spreadsheets had some resemblance o [...]

In the previous article, I discussed how we can treat Excel and text files as if they were a database using DAO, and how we can open them without linking. Because they do not use ODBC drivers, their connection string will be formatted quite differently from what you might be accustomed to seeing for [...]

Access is a phenomenal tool for working with many data sources. You may have long known that you can easily import or export data in a wide array of formats. However, we had a scenario where we needed to process data from external data sources. The processing runs frequently so importing data would [...]

Microsoft has reported that they've disabled the feature which should then avoid the need to rollback the version. The new feature will be made available in version 2010, planned for end of October 2020. In meanwhile, it will be deactivated, and will remain so until then. There should be no need to [...]

**** Only applies to users on Access with SQL Server table links, otherwise this alert does not apply **** We are getting early reports that the build 1912/2001 released with Office 365 may break the ODBC linked table that contains an identity column, causing different errors. If you receive errors [...]