Visual Basic/Databases

Database management as a subject in its own right is far too big to be dealt with in this book and would distract from the principal subject which is programming in VB Classic. Nonetheless we can explain the basics of connecting to databases, retrieving information from them and so on.

The usual way to connect to a database from VB is to use ADO (ActiveX Data Objects).

Connecting to databases usually happens with a connection string. Here are some example connection strings to connect to some common database types

A

ACCESS

ODBC

Standard Security

Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};Dbq=C:\mydatabase.mdb;Uid=Admin;Pwd=; 

Workgroup

Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};Dbq=C:\mydatabase.mdb;SystemDB=C:\mydatabase.mdw; 

Exclusive

Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};Dbq=C:\mydatabase.mdb;Exclusive=1;Uid=admin;Pwd=; 

Enable admin statements To enable certain programatically admin functions such as CREATE USER, CREATE GROUP, ADD USER, GRANT, REVOKE and DEFAULTS (when making CREATE TABLE statements) use this connection string.

Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};Dbq=C:\mydatabase.mdb;Uid=Admin;Pwd=;ExtendedAnsiSQL=1; 

Specifying locale identifier Use this to specify the locale identifier which can help with non-US formatted dates.

Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};Dbq=C:\mydatabase.mdb;Locale Identifier=2057;Uid=Admin;Pwd=; 

The above example uses the en-gb locale identifier (2057).

OLE DB, OleDbConnection (.NET)

Standard security

Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=C:\mydatabase.mdb;User Id=admin;Password=; 

With database password This is the connection string to use when you have an access database protected with a password using the Set Database Password function in Access.

Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=C:\mydatabase.mdb;Jet OLEDB:Database Password=MyDbPassword; 

Workgroup (system database)

Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=C:\mydatabase.mdb;Jet OLEDB:System Database=system.mdw; 

Workgroup (system database) specifying username and password

Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=C:\mydatabase.mdb;Jet OLEDB:System Database=system.mdw;User ID=myUsername;Password=myPassword; 

DataDirectory functionality

Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=|DataDirectory|\myDatabase.mdb;User Id=admin;Password=; 

ACCESS 2007 Standard security

Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=C:\myFolder\myAccess2007file.accdb;Persist Security Info=False;

With database password

Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=C:\myFolder\myAccess2007file.accdb;Jet OLEDB:Database Password=MyDbPassword;

Datadirectory functionality

Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=|DataDirectory|\myAccess2007file.accdb;Persist Security Info=False;

E

Excel Files

ODBC

Driver={Microsoft Excel Driver (*.xls)};DriverId=790;Dbq=C:\MyExcel.xls;DefaultDir=c:\mypath;

Remark:

SQL syntax "SELECT * FROM [sheet1$]". -- i.e. excel worksheet name followed by a "$" and wrapped in "[" "]" brackets. 

OLEDB

Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=C:\MyExcel.xls;Extended Properties="Excel 8.0;HDR=Yes;IMEX=1";

Important note!

The quote " in the string needs to be escaped using your language specific escape syntax.

c#, c++   \"
VB6, VBScript   ""
xml (web.config etc)   "
or maybe use a single quote '.

"HDR=Yes;" indicates that the first row contains columnnames, not data. "HDR=No;" indicates the opposite.

"IMEX=1;" tells the driver to always read "intermixed" (numbers, dates, strings etc) data columns as text. Note that this option might affect Excel worksheet write access negative.

SQL syntax "SELECT * FROM [sheet1$]". -- i.e. Excel worksheet name followed by a "$" and wrapped in "[" "]" brackets.

Check out the [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Jet\4.0\Engines\Excel] located registry REG_DWORD "TypeGuessRows". That's the key to not letting Excel use only the first 8 rows to guess the columns data type. Set this value to 0 to scan all rows. This might hurt performance. If the Excel workbook is protected by a password, you cannot open it for data access, even by supplying the correct password with your connection string. If you try, you receive the following error message: "Could not decrypt file."

Excel 2007 Files

Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=c:\myFolder\myExcel2007file.xlsx;Extended Properties="Excel 12.0 Xml;HDR=YES";

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