Microsoft KB Archive/210314

= ACC2000: How to Use ADO or DAO to Retrieve a Field's Description =

Article ID: 210314

Article Last Modified on 6/24/2004

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Access 2000 Standard Edition

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This article was previously published under Q210314



Advanced: Requires expert coding, interoperability, and multiuser skills.

This article applies only to a Microsoft Access database (.mdb).



SUMMARY
This article describes two methods you can use to retrieve the field description stored with a field in a table definition. One method shows how to do this with ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) and the other shows how to do this with Data Access Objects (DAO).



MORE INFORMATION
Each field has a Description property that you can reference with ADO or DAO. The following examples demonstrates how to return a field's description:

ADO Method
The sample code in this article uses ActiveX Data Objects. For this code to run properly, you need to reference the Microsoft ADO Ext. 2.5 for DDL and Security Library.  Start Microsoft Access and open the sample database Northwind.mdb.  Create a new module, and then type the following line in the Declarations section if it is not already there: Option Explicit   Type or paste the following procedure: Function GetFieldDesc_ADO(ByVal MyTableName As String, _ ByVal MyFieldName As String) Dim MyDB As New ADOX.Catalog Dim MyTable As ADOX.Table Dim MyField As ADOX.Column

On Error GoTo Err_GetFieldDescription

MyDB.ActiveConnection = CurrentProject.Connection Set MyTable = MyDB.Tables(MyTableName) GetFieldDesc_ADO = MyTable.Columns(MyFieldName).Properties("Description") Set MyDB = Nothing

Bye_GetFieldDescription: Exit Function

Err_GetFieldDescription: Beep MsgBox Err.Description, vbExclamation GetFieldDescription = Null Resume Bye_GetFieldDescription

End Function  Click Immediate Window on the View menu or press CTRL+G to open the Immediate window. To test this function, type the following line in the Immediate window, and then press ENTER:

? GetFieldDesc_ADO("Employees", "EmployeeID")

Note that the description for the EmployeeID field is returned.

DAO Method
NOTE: The sample code in this article uses Microsoft Data Access Objects. For this code to run properly, you must reference the Microsoft DAO 3.6 Object Library. To do so, click References on the Tools menu in the Visual Basic Editor, and make sure that the Microsoft DAO 3.6 Object Library check box is selected.

 Start Microsoft Access and open the sample database Northwind.mdb.</li>  Create a new module, and then type the following line in the Declarations section if it is not already there: Option Explicit </li>  Type or paste the following procedure: Function GetFieldDesc_DAO (ByVal MyTableName As String, _ ByVal MyFieldName As String) Dim DB As DAO.Database Dim TD As DAO.TableDef Dim FLD As DAO.Field

Set DB = CurrentDB

On Error GoTo Err_GetFieldDescription

Set TD = DB.TableDefs(MyTableName) Set FLD = TD.Fields(MyFieldName)

GetFieldDesc_DAO = FLD.Properties("Description")

Bye_GetFieldDescription: Exit Function

Err_GetFieldDescription: Beep MsgBox Err.Description, vbExclamation GetFieldDescription = Null Resume Bye_GetFieldDescription

End Function </li> Click Immediate Window on the View menu or press CTRL+G to open the Immediate window.</li> To test this function, type the following line in the Immediate window, and then press ENTER:

? GetFieldDesc_DAO("Employees", "EmployeeID")

Note that the description for the EmployeeID field is returned.</li></ol>

Additional query words: programming

Keywords: kbhowto kbprogramming KB210314

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