What is the correct syntax when creating a table in Access with SQL? I have tried DECIMAL, DOUBLE, NUMBER, INT... nothing lets me create an integer category with limiters.
Example:
CREATE TABLE NONGAME (
ITEM_NUM CHAR(4) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
DESCRIPTION CHAR(30),
ON_HAND NUMBER(4), <------- DOES NOT WORK!
CATEGORY CHAR(3),
PRICE DECIMAL(6,2), <------- DOES NOT WORK!
ANYTHING DOUBLE(4,2) <------- DOES NOT WORK!
);
MICROSOFT ACCESS DATA TYPES
The following table shows the Microsoft Access data types, data types used to create tables, and ODBC SQL data types. Some types have limitations, outlined following the table.
Microsoft Access data type Data type (CREATE TABLE) ODBC SQL data type
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BIGBINARY[1] LONGBINARY SQL_LONGVARBINARY
BINARY BINARY SQL_BINARY
BIT BIT SQL_BIT
COUNTER COUNTER SQL_INTEGER
CURRENCY CURRENCY SQL_NUMERIC
DATE/TIME DATETIME SQL_TIMESTAMP
GUID GUID SQL_GUID
LONG BINARY LONGBINARY SQL_LONGVARBINARY
LONG TEXT LONGTEXT SQL_LONGVARCHAR[2]
MEMO LONGTEXT SQL_LONGVARCHAR[2]
NUMBER (FieldSize= SINGLE) SINGLE SQL_REAL
NUMBER (FieldSize= DOUBLE) DOUBLE SQL_DOUBLE
NUMBER (FieldSize= BYTE) UNSIGNED BYTE SQL_TINYINT
NUMBER (FieldSize= INTEGER) SHORT SQL_SMALLINT
NUMBER (FieldSize= LONG INTEGER) LONG SQL_INTEGER
NUMERIC NUMERIC SQL_NUMERIC
OLE LONGBINARY SQL_LONGVARBINARY
TEXT VARCHAR SQL_VARCHAR[1]
ARBINARY VARBINARY SQL_VARBINARY
[1] Access 4.0 applications only. Max 4000 B. Behaviour similar to LONGBINARY.
[2] ANSI applications only.
[3] Unicode and Access 4.0 applications only.
Note: SQLGetTypeInfo returns ODBC data types. It will not return all Microsoft Access data types if more than one Microsoft Access type is mapped to the same ODBC SQL data type. All conversions in Appendix D of the ODBC Programmer's Reference are supported for the SQL data types listed in the previous table.
Limitations on Microsoft Access data types
BINARY**, **VARBINARY**, and **VARCHAR: Creating a BINARY, VARBINARY, or VARCHAR column of zero or unspecified length actually returns a 510-byte column.
BYTE: Even though a Microsoft Access NUMBER field with a FieldSize equal to BYTE is unsigned, a negative number can be inserted into the field when using the Microsoft Access driver.
CHAR**, **LONGVARCHAR**, and **VARCHAR: A character string literal can contain any ANSI character (1-255 decimal). Use two consecutive single quotation marks ('') to represent one single quotation mark ('). Procedures should be used to pass character data when using any special character in a character data type column.
DATE: Date values must be either delimited according to the ODBC canonical date format or delimited by the datetime delimiter (#). Otherwise, Microsoft Access will treat the value as an arithmetic expression and will not raise a warning or error.
For example, the date "March 5, 1996" must be represented as {d '1996-03-05'} or #03/05/1996#; otherwise, if only 03/05/1993 is submitted, Microsoft Access will evaluate this as 3 ÷ 5 ÷ 1996. This value rounds up to the integer 0, and since the zero day maps to 1899-12-31, this is the date used.
A pipe character (|) cannot be used in a date value, even if enclosed in back quotes.
GUID: Data type limited to Microsoft Access 4.0.
NUMERIC: Data type limited to Microsoft Access 4.0.
(More information at the Source)
Limitations on ODBC Desktop Driver data types
The Microsoft ODBC Desktop Database Drivers impose the following limitations on data types:
All data types Type conversion failures might result in the affected column being set to NULL.
BINARY Creating a zero-length BINARY column actually returns a 255-byte BINARY column.
DATE The DATE data type cannot be converted to another data type (or itself) by the CONVERT function.
DECIMAL (Exact Numeric)** Not supported.
Floating-Point Data Types The number of decimal places in a floating-point number may be limited by the number format set in the International section of the Windows Control Panel.
NUMERIC Supports maximum precision and a scale of 28.
TIMESTAMP The TIMESTAMP data type cannot be converted to itself by the CONVERT function.
TINYINT: TINYINT values are always unsigned.
Zero-Length Strings: When a dBASE, Microsoft Excel, Paradox, or Textdriver is used, inserting a zero-length string into a column actually inserts a NULL instead.
(Source)
More Information:
MSDN : Create and Delete Tables and Indexes Using Access SQL
MSDN : CREATE TABLE Statement (Microsoft Access SQL)
Microsoft Docs : Microsoft Access Data Types
Microsoft Docs : Data Type Limitations
Microsoft Docs : Converting between ODBC and SQL Server data types
Microsoft Docs : Limitations of SQL ODBC Desktop Drivers
Wikipedia : Open Database Connectivity (ODBC)
Small addendum by Erik:
You can actually use the Decimal data type in CREATE TABLE queries. However, this requires your statement to be executed either using ADO, or on a database that's been set to use ANSI-92 compatible syntax.
To set your database to ANSI-92 compatible syntax:
Go to File -> Options. Open the tab Object Designers. Go to Query Designer, and under SQL Server Compatible Syntax (ANSI 92), check This Database. Now you can just execute the query. Note that this affects all queries in the database, and affects queries in various ways.
To execute a query using ADO:
In the VBA Immediate Window, execute the following line:
CurrentProject.Connection.Execute "CREATE TABLE NONGAME (ITEM_NUM CHAR(4) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY, PRICE DECIMAL(6,2));"
Of course, you can execute more complex queries using ADO.
DECIMAL and DOUBLE cannot be used in Access. For a "price", CURRENCY is the best bet. For my other integer, I just used NUMBER and gave it no limiters.
I'm working on ssis package which exports data from SQL Server to Excel. I had a problem converting non-unicode to unicode string data types. So I created a derived Column task and converted to Unicode string [DT_WSTR] 4 columns which have a type Varchar(40) in SQL Server table. It worked with these columns. But I also have a Description column of type varchar(max) and I tried to convert it to Unicode text stream [DT_NTEXT]. It did not work.
If your source is SQL Server (as you said), you can convert it directly in your SQL Query
SELECT
CONVERT(NVARCHAR(40), 'att1')
,CONVERT(NTEXT, 'att2')
Convert your VARCHAR into NVARCHAR
Convert your TEXT into NTEXT
it's faster.
P.S. To test it (Do not forget to delete or reset your previous OLE DB Input component) -> It will be forced to reevaluate your datatype
Does it help you?
The only thing that worked was to cast a Description column in Stored Procedure as varchar(1000). I checked the max length of this field and it was about 300 characters. So I made it varchar(1000) and in Derived column Unicode string [DT_WSTR]. This was a workaround, but I still want to know how to make it in ssis package without converting data type in Stored Procedure.
Ok, I have a table I am querying for an outside project. The table has a field that is alphanumeric but the external project can only support numeric data. The outside project is needing my data as an Excel spreadsheet so I am trying to just export my query to Excel which I can do but I can't seem to figure out if there is a simple convert feature to do this for me. The originating table has the field as VARCHAR(10). I tried CAST and CONVERT but no go. This is SQL Server 2012.
Thanks.
I have a predefined SQL data base that we have to work correctly with a reporting software we have purchased. When ever we pull a column of data with the reporting software we get system.indexoutofrangeexception error. On the first table we replaced all Semi Colons ';' with space within the data and this corrected the issue. This column does not have any other special characters within the data only semi colons.
However the data in the second column we need to query contains all different kinds of characters that are probably invalid. The column type is ntext and would like to either change the data directly in the sql database everytime there is a new entry or would changing the format to nvarchar(max) or nvarchar(1024) be suffice?
Thanks for the support I am beyond green at sql.
Your problem is most likely not related to the datatype in your database but the data itself.
Your reporting software seems to have specific requirements that your data does not meet.
I need to store XML data to database(MS SQL Server). The data type defined in the column is text.
I need to know the the equalent datatype for text. I have tried with adLongVarChar but it does not works. Also I tried with adLongVarWChar(nText). But both are not working.
Need help.
Thanks.
In case your are using SQL Server 2005 or higher then you might prefer going for the XML data type. Read more of it here http://www.codeproject.com/KB/database/XMLdDataType.aspx
Also going forward avoid using ntext and text data types as they would be removed from future versions of SQL Server. Instead go for nvarchar(max) or varchar(max). Read on this here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187993.aspx
cheers
TSQL datatype for a string is varchar or nvarchar (unicode). To specify the length of the string, varchar(50).
Also note there is an XML datatype in SS 2008 (2005?).