Using Custom Functions in Calculated Controls

Custom functions work the same way as MS Access built-in functions such as DateAdd, DatePart and DSum, but are instead created ourselves as database developers.  We do this by creating a public function with the VBA programming language and save it inside a global module within the database. Today I am going to explain how custom functions can be…

IS NULL: Understanding and Using the Null Value in Microsoft Access

In Microsoft Access, a null value is a value that is not assigned or unknown. When working with databases, it’s important to understand how to use and identify null values in order to ensure accurate and efficient data management. The IS NULL operator is one of the most useful tools for working with null values…

Truthy and Falsy Values

“Truthy” and “Falsy” Values

VBA is quite very loose in what it deems “truthy” and “falsy”. For example, this procedure can produce surprising result: If Me.MyBitField.Value = True Then ‘It is true Else ‘It is false End If At the first glance, it seems expected that if the bit field is set to 1, it would succeed. But in…

Enable and Disable a Form Control using VBA

I was working on a design for an Order Management Database, and one of the tasks I dealt with involved dynamically Enabling or Disabling one of the form’s Command Buttons’ using VBA. This gave me the idea for the present Access tip. The command button was located on a Customer Details form which had an Orders…

Access UPDATE query to SQL Server

How do I convert an Access UPDATE query to SQL Server? Access SQL UPDATE Cars INNER JOIN UpdateList ON Cars.Parts = UpdateList.Parts SET Cars.Price = [Updatelist].[price] SQL Server UPDATE Cars SET Cars.Price = [Updatelist].[price] FROM Cars INNER JOIN UpdateList ON Cars.Parts = UpdateList.Parts

Use properties instead of constant or magic numbers

A common programming mistake is to hard-code literals that corresponds to some property. That is particularly true with certain controls like tab controls & pages. The tab control exposes a Value property that indicates the current tab and the pages contains a PageIndex property that indicates its position in the tabs of the control. Thus,…

Access CDate() function to SQL Server equivalent

What is the SQL Server equivalent to Access CDate() function? Access SQL CDate([Event Timestamp]) SQL Server Equivalent cast([Event Timestamp] as datetime) convert(datetime, [Event Timestamp])

MODULE LEVEL VARIABLES

Module level variables

It is common to create a big wall of declaration in a module such as this: Private strCompanyName As String Private dteOrderDate As Date Private lngOrderID As Long Private objEmail As Object Private objOutlook As Object While the code will compile and work fine, the discoverability and naming of the module level variables does become…

Minimizing stateful code

First we need to define what a state is. A state means that the object has variable(s) that may cause it to behave differently, depending on the content of the variables. As an example, the Forms collection is stateful: Forms(“SomeForm”).Visible = False This is legal code and will compile but we can’t be assured that…

Access IIf() function to SQL Server equivalent

What is the SQL Server equivalent to Access IIf() function? Access SQL IIf([ResultValue]>=1, [Result Value], Null) SQL Server CASE WHEN [Result Value]>=1 THEN [Result Value] ELSE NULL END