Re-arrangement of data

[JBelle]

I am importing a large text file into Access 2007. The first 7 fields import
correctly. However, the 10th field, a text field, is being inserted between
the original 7th and 8th fields. So, the import comes is as fields 1,2 3, 4,
5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 8, 9. No other fields are rearranged. This issue means that
in order to populate a table with titles, I have to do an append field by
field instead of an append copy. Can anyone explain why Access would reorder
these fields? The file is comma delimited and I never had this problem prior
to migrating to 2007!.

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

Tables in relational databases (not just in Access) don't have a guaranteed
order of records. The only way you can ensure the order of records is to use
a query with an appropriate ORDER BY clause.

 

[JBelle]

Why does the import wizard change the order of the fields? And why does this
happen in Access 2007 when it NEVER happened in Access 2000 or 2003. I've
been importing this data for that past 9 years and this issue only developed
with Access 2007. There is no Order By option when importing the data.

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

Why it never happened before, I can't comment. The fact is, in no version of
Access (nor, as I already said, any other relational database management
system) can you ever rely on the order of records in the table.

There's no ORDER BY clause for importing. ORDER BY is only relevant in
queries, to control the order in which the records are displayed.