ERROR in CREATE VIEW - sql

Question

I tried to create a new view in my MS Access database so I can select better from it but I wonder what's happening here.
CREATE VIEW new
AS
SELECT msthread.id,
msthread.threadname,
Count(msthread.threadname) AS TotalPost,
threadcategory
FROM msthread
LEFT OUTER JOIN msposts
ON msthread.threadname = msposts.threadname
GROUP BY msthread.id,
msthread.threadname,
msthread.threadcategory
Access gives me this error message when I try to execute that statement.
Syntax error in create table statement
Is there specific problems in creating view with JOINs? I'm trying to access 2 tables.

Answer 1

CREATE VIEW was introduced with Jet 4 in Access 2000. But you must execute the statement from ADO/OleDb. If executed from DAO, it triggers error 3290, "Syntax error in CREATE TABLE statement", which is more confusing than helpful.
Also CREATE VIEW can only create simple SELECT queries. Use CREATE PROCEDURE for any which CREATE VIEW can't handle.
But CREATE VIEW should handle yours. I used a string variable to hold the DDL statement below, and then executed it from CurrentProject.Connection in an Access session:
CurrentProject.Connection.Execute strSql
That worked because CurrentProject.Connection is an ADO object. If you will be doing this from outside Access, use an OleDb connection.
Notice I made a few changes to your query. Most were minor. But I think the query name change may be important. New is a reserved word so I chose qryNew instead. Reserved words as object names seem especially troublesome in queries run from ADO/OleDb.
CREATE VIEW qryNew
AS
SELECT
mst.id,
mst.threadname,
mst.threadcategory,
Count(mst.threadname) AS TotalPost
FROM
msthread AS mst
LEFT JOIN msposts AS msp
ON mst.threadname = msp.threadname
GROUP BY
mst.id,
mst.threadname,
mst.threadcategory;

Answer 2

Going out on a limb here without the error message but my assumption is that you need an alias in front of your non-aliased column.
You may also have a problem titling the view as new. This is a problem with using a generic name for a view or table. Try giving it a distinct name that matters. I'll use msThreadPosts as an example.
CREATE VIEW msThreadPosts
AS
SELECT msthread.id,
msthread.threadname,
Count(msthread.threadname) AS TotalPost,
msposts.threadcategory --Not sure if you want msposts or msthread just pick one
FROM msthread
LEFT OUTER JOIN msposts
ON msthread.threadname = msposts.threadname
GROUP BY msthread.id,
msthread.threadname,
msthread.threadcategory
As long as we are looking at this query lets fix some other things that are being done in a silly way.
Lets start off with aliasing. If you alias a column you can very easily make your query easy to understand and read to anyone who is inclined to read it.
CREATE VIEW msThreadPosts
AS
SELECT mt.id,
mt.threadname,
Count(mt.threadname) AS TotalPost,
mp.threadcategory
FROM mtas mt
LEFT OUTER JOIN msposts mp
ON mt.threadname = mp.threadname
GROUP BY mt.id,
mt.threadname,
mt.threadcategory
There now doesn't that look better.
The next thing to look as if your column names. msthread has an id column. That column name is incredibly generic. This can cause problems when a column isn't aliased and an id exists in mulitple places or there are muliple id columns. Now if we change that column name to msthreadID it makes things much clearer. The goal is to design your tables in a way that anyone working on your database can imidiatley tell what a column is doing.
The next thing to look at is your join. Why are you joining on thread name? threadname is likely a character string and therefore not terribly efficient for joins. if msthread as an id column and needs to be joined to msposts then shouldn't msposts also have that id column to match up on to make joins more efficient?