Editing & Running an SQL Query in an Access database from Excel VBA - sql

Question

I am trying to write a Excel VBA macro that runs a query based upon a variable in the spreadsheet. The existing data is half in a large data base (MS Access) on the network.
For some reason when my code runs, nothing is pasted back to my spreadsheet. Can you see why this may be the case:
Sub test()
Dim cnn As New ADODB.Connection
Dim rst As New ADODB.Recordset
Dim ConnectionString As String
Dim StrQuery As String
ConnectionString = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;DataSource=\\network\data07\version6.mdb;"
cnn.Open ConnectionString
cnn.CommandTimeout = 900
StrQuery = "SELECT dbo_vwData_SelectAll.BusinessDate, , dbo_vwData_SelectAll.Flowdate, dbo_vwData_SelectAll.Bucket FROM dbo_vwData_SelectAll WHERE (((dbo_vwData_SelectAll.Line)=""1.1.1.4"") AND ((dbo_vwData_SelectAll.ReferenceID) Like ""rent*"");"
rst.Open StrQuery, cnn
Sheets("Sheet2").Range("A2").CopyFromRecordset rst
End Sub
The above is a test - I will be changing "rent*" for other variables based on strings in the spreadsheet.
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The misappropriated LIKE operator is a known issue in the MS Access SQL dialect. When using MSAccess.exe GUI program, LIKE uses the asterisk wildcard, *. However, using MS Access via ODBC as a backend database as you are with Excel, LIKE uses the ANSI wildcard, %. See MS Office Support docs on Access wildcard character reference.
Therefore, consider the following adjustment which includes use of single quotes:
SELECT dbo_vwData_SelectAll.BusinessDate,
dbo_vwData_SelectAll.Flowdate, dbo_vwData_SelectAll.Bucket
FROM dbo_vwData_SelectAll
WHERE (((dbo_vwData_SelectAll.Line)='1.1.1.4')
AND ((dbo_vwData_SelectAll.ReferenceID) LIKE 'rent%');
To be consistent in either frontend or backend interfaces, consider the ALIKE operator:
AND ((dbo_vwData_SelectAll.ReferenceID) ALIKE 'rent%');