Access

Stat/Transfer will read and write Access databases on Windows.

 

Although the data are transferred through the Microsoft Access ODBC driver, Access files are treated as a normal Stat/Transfer file type. You can thus choose the file from the normal Open or Save dialog boxes and need not be concerned with the process of configuring an ODBC data source for each file.

 

In order to use Microsoft Access you must have the ODBC and Access components installed with the Stat/Transfer program.  If you did not do this when you installed Stat/Transfer, you can re-run the installation program and install these components.

 

Standard extension: mdb

 

Reading Microsoft Access Databases

Stat/Transfer can either read single tables or multiple tables that are joined in an Access "view".

 

Access has a single "date" type 'Date/Time', which is used to store date, time and date/time values.  The format of the column determines how these are displayed.  There is no straightforward way outside of Access to determine how a column is formatted.  By default, Stat/Transfer reads the first ten cases of the file to determine if each 'Date/Time' column contains date data, time data or both.  This information is used to set the type.  You can change this default in the ODBC/Access Options of the Options dialog box.

 

Variable labels are now transferred when reading Access tables.

 

Writing Microsoft Access Databases

On output, tables can be created in a new file, new tables can be created in an existing file, or existing tables can be overwritten with a new table.

 

In addition, new data can be now appended to an existing database table.  This option is off by default and must be turned on by using the Append to Access and ODBC Tables option in the ODBC/Access Options of the Options dialog box or the SET command DB-TABLE-APPEND in the command processor.

 

Stat/Transfer will match as many variables as possible to those already in the table and add your data to the matching columns.  Obviously at least one column must match exactly and, in addition, the table must be free of constraints, such as those requiring unique keys, that would prohibit a simple 'append' operation.

 

When writing time or date data to Access, there is no way for Stat/Transfer to set the format.  Because of this, these variable types are written as 'Date/Time' values.  You may, if you wish, change the format with Access after you have transferred your data.

 

Missing Data

Access supports a null value, which is the same as Stat/Transfer's missing value.

 

Output Variable Types

The output variable type that results from each target variable type is given in the following table:

 

 

Target Type

Output Type

 

byte

int

Short

 

long 

Long

 

float

Single

 

double

Double

 

date

time

date/time

Date/Time

 

string

Character