OLEDB and text files

Francesco Giossi — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 21:00:14 GMT

This is a very quick example about OLEDB and read a text (.txt) file using Visual Basic 6.
The text file must be formatted as a simple CSV file with a field separator. Something like this

Test.txt

a;1;Test
b;2;Test
c;3;Test
d;4;Test

Supposing "Test.Txt" is stored in the root of the C: harddrive, the code will look like

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Dim cn As ADODB.Connection
Dim rs As ADODB.Recordset
Set cn = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
cn.Open "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=c:\;Extended Properties=""text;HDR=No;FMT=Delimited'"""
Set rs = CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")
rs.Open "SELECT * FROM Test.txt", cn, 0, 1, 1
While Not rs.EOF
Debug.Print rs.Fields(0).Value, rs.Fields(1).Value, rs.Fields(2).Value
rs.MoveNext
Wend
rs.Close
Set rs = Nothing
cn.Close
Set cn = Nothing

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Take a look to the connection string

"Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=c:\;Extended Properties=""text;HDR=No;FMT=Delimited'"""

the Data Source=c:\; is the key. If you plan to store your text file in a different folde, let's say "c:\documents and settings\Auser\Documents\myTestFiles\", you are required to change the connection string this way:

"Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=c:\documents and settings\Auser\Documents\myTestFiles\;Extended Properties=""text;HDR=No;FMT=Delimited'"""