Parsing String Data Into Access

[Brenda]

Hi,

Have been playing with an Access membership database for which now has data
entered manually into a table through form view. Am looking to swipe a
drivers licence through a card reader to store the data into the table. I
know enough about Access to build the manual database but am at a loss here.
I believe this can be acchived using VB. I have managed to bring the DL data
into one field from a card rader into the table through form view but that is
as far as I can go. That I feel was the hardest part! I now need to parse
the stringed data into Name, Address, City etc fields that will then display
in form view. Any programmers out there that can help me?

 

[John Vinson]

Hi,

Have been playing with an Access membership database for which now has data
entered manually into a table through form view. Am looking to swipe a
drivers licence through a card reader to store the data into the table. I
know enough about Access to build the manual database but am at a loss here.
I believe this can be acchived using VB. I have managed to bring the DL data
into one field from a card rader into the table through form view but that is
as far as I can go. That I feel was the hardest part! I now need to parse
the stringed data into Name, Address, City etc fields that will then display
in form view. Any programmers out there that can help me?

Given a DL number - where do you expect to *get* the data for the
other fields? Are they already stored in your table?

If so, you can scan into an unbound textbox, and use its AfterUpdate
event to *NAVIGATE* to the already-existing record. I would not
recommend looking up these fields and storing them redundantly in
another table, if that's what you're asking!

John W. Vinson[MVP]

 

[Brenda]

Hi John and thanks for the quick response. What I have is a column set up
that reads all of the DL information, name, address, licence #, weight, etc.
All of that info comes into the table under a column called DL Info. From
there I need to break down the data that is strung together and separate last
name, first name etc. Here is an example of what comes off the licence after
it is swiped -
%TXSEALY^DOE$JOHN$ALLEN^1493 EAST 25TH^?;6360151081230057=090819640806?+"
7746410000 C F505185BLOHZL $1%H
?
You can see the address plainly with the name, last, first and middle, the
DL number is 1230057 and the birthdate is 640806 (8-6-64), 77464 is the zip.
My vision is to swipe the liecence and have the data come into the table
under the DL Info column while in form view, press a button to convert all
the data that is in that field into separate fields on the same line but
broken down into the last name column, first name column etc and have it all
display in form view. This is going be a bigger project that I can handle
and will probably have to send what I have to someone to actually see what I
have so far or find someone who programs this stuff for a living.

Thanks!

Brenda

 

[John Vinson]

Hi John and thanks for the quick response. What I have is a column set up
that reads all of the DL information, name, address, licence #, weight, etc.
All of that info comes into the table under a column called DL Info. From
there I need to break down the data that is strung together and separate last
name, first name etc. Here is an example of what comes off the licence after
it is swiped -
%TXSEALY^DOE$JOHN$ALLEN^1493 EAST 25TH^?;6360151081230057=090819640806?+"
7746410000 C F505185BLOHZL $1%H
?
You can see the address plainly with the name, last, first and middle, the
DL number is 1230057 and the birthdate is 640806 (8-6-64), 77464 is the zip.
My vision is to swipe the liecence and have the data come into the table
under the DL Info column while in form view, press a button to convert all
the data that is in that field into separate fields on the same line but
broken down into the last name column, first name column etc and have it all
display in form view. This is going be a bigger project that I can handle
and will probably have to send what I have to someone to actually see what I
have so far or find someone who programs this stuff for a living.

This is actually not too terribly difficult. You will need some VBA
code using substringing functions such as INSTR, Left, and Mid to
parse this out. It might take me ten or fifteen minutes or might take
a good bit longer, depending on the meaning of the cryptic long
strings of numbers and alphanumeric characters might be. Is the
structure of this string documented in some public fashion?

John W. Vinson[MVP]

 

[Brenda]

Hi again John and thanks for giving me some hope! No, this is not documented
in a public fashion that I know of. The example I used came straight off of
the swipe using a magtech card reader. I have been successful in setting up
and getting the swiped data into one column or field. The data comes from 3
tracks on the dl and is presented all on one line. I learned this from
contacting magtech who made the reader and informed me a dl uses 3 tracks.
The reader takes all 3 tracks and sends the data into the one field I have
set up. I am trying to learn VB but can't quite grasp the hang of it. I
have done some old time Basic programming and that language is sticking in my
mind and throwing me!

Brenda.