Microsoft Access OLE DB

General

It is possible to access some resources without writing any line of code. All you need is to write a query which makes use of ISAM OLEDB.

For further reading:

• Overview

Microsoft Access

Tables and Queries

SELECT *
  FROM tblTable 
    IN 'c:\source.mdb'

This allows you to easily refer to other databases' tables and queries without the need to create a linked table.

Microsoft Excel

Named Range

SELECT *
  FROM [NamedRange] 
    IN 'c:\source.xls'[EXCEL 8.0;];

Accessing data by naming ranges allows the developer to specify exactly what should be imported. By this—and the optional parameters—it should be easy to retrieve exactly the desired data and nothing else.

Worksheet

SELECT *
  FROM [Worksheet$] 
    IN 'c:\source.xls'[EXCEL 8.0;];

Reference

SELECT *
  FROM [Worksheet$A1:B2] 
    IN 'c:\source.xls'[EXCEL 8.0;];

Optional Parameters

• HDR
• IMEX

Text file

SELECT *
  FROM source.csv 
    IN 'c:\'[TEXT;];

Optional Parameters

• HDR

HTML

While this works theoretically in general, there are many problems with selecting data from web sites. These HTML specifica make it impracticable to work with HTML tables this way.

Exchange

It is possible to query Exchange / Outlook folders and address books as follows:

SELECT *
  FROM Inbox 
    IN 'c:\temp\'[Exchange 4.0;MAPILEVEL=Account - Paul Stevens|;TABLETYPE=0;];

where Account - Paul Stevens has to be replaced by the exact name of the Inbox followed by the pipe (|). This works for Contacts, Calendar and other folders too.

ODBC

ODBC is considered as deprecated technology and does nothing which OLEDB is not capable of, but for the sake of backwards compatibility it is possible to use ODBC connections too.

Optional Parameters

The optional parameters can be appended to the required part in the brackets. Example:

[EXCEL 8.0;HDR=yes;IMEX=0;]

HDR

Does the data source have headings?

• Values: yes|no
• Default: yes

IMEX

Should the data be imported "as is" in text format or should windows try to guess the value type of each column?

• Values: 0|1
• Default: 1 (guess)