ole

[dennisfed]

i am an old cobol programmer just exposed to access. i have written a
complete database fom entry to report(with help from a great friend and alot
of vodka), my boss now wants me to change the tab for linked attachment to
OLE to store the actual document in the database. i cannot figure this out
thanks
dennis

 

[John W. Vinson]

i am an old cobol programmer just exposed to access. i have written a
complete database fom entry to report(with help from a great friend and alot
of vodka), my boss now wants me to change the tab for linked attachment to
OLE to store the actual document in the database. i cannot figure this out
thanks
dennis

Well... that's probably a Very Bad Idea. OLE objects (especially those
containing Word documents or the like) tend to be quite large, and the size of
these objects will count toward the 2GByte absolute size limit on your
database. It would not take very many documents before your database simply
stopped working altogether (and would run the risk of destroying all your
other data and documents if it corrupts in the process).

What advantage does your boss see that would outweigh this risk?

 

[dennisfed]

i totally understand, the db will be moved now and then, i do not know why, i
have explained all negatives to the boss lady and this is what she wants.

 

[John W. Vinson]

i am an old cobol programmer just exposed to access. i have written a
complete database fom entry to report(with help from a great friend and alot
of vodka), my boss now wants me to change the tab for linked attachment to
OLE to store the actual document in the database. i cannot figure this out
thanks
dennis

Perhaps it would help accomplish this ill-fated and misguided requirement
(yes, I've worked for unreasonable bosses) if you could explain what you mean
by "the tab for linked attachment".

 

[Dennis]

I'm his buddy who's been assisting him on this. He has a tabbed form. One of
the tabs contains a linked subform to the "tblAttachments" table. In that
table is a short description of the file, the FK to the parent record, and
(formerly) a text field with the path to the document, set-up as a clickable
link. It's this last field that the boss wants changed to an actual OLE
column in the database, and the subform must then accept the actual file
rather than simply the link. Since a single parent record can have several
atttachments, this is accounted for via the subform and associated attachment
table.

 

[David W. Fenton]

the db will be moved now and then, i do not know why, i
have explained all negatives to the boss lady and this is what she
wants.

Don't store the full path for the filename, but define a base path
somewhere, say, in a configuration table or in a custom database
property. You'd then store the filename with its path relative to
the base path, and when/if the database is moved, you would change
the value for the base path and copy all the files over to the new
location.

In my opinion the only place where storing files in OLE fields is
warranted is if you need the files in more than one location and use
replication.