PRB: Jet Text IISAM Driver Drops Leading Spaces

• Microsoft Visual Basic Professional and Enterprise Editions for Windows, version 5.0
• Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications version 5.0
• Microsoft Access 97

SYMPTOMS

When importing a delimited text file into a Jet database, leading spaces are truncated from field data.

CAUSE

The TEXT IISAM driver for Jet incorrectly truncates spaces from fields that aren't delimited by the text qualifier character.

RESOLUTION

Make sure you use quotes or other text qualifier around your fields if you need to preserve leading spaces in your data.

STATUS

Microsoft is researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

MORE INFORMATION

WARNING: Your use or modification of the CODE provided in this article is at your own risk. Microsoft provides this CODE "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. Microsoft does not support modifications of the CODE to suit specific customer requirements.

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

1. Using Notepad, create a text file with the following data:

         ID,Desc
         Line1, Description 1
         Line2," Description 2"
   

2. Save the file as c:\test.txt.

3. In Visual Basic, create a new project and add a reference for Microsoft DAO 3.5 Object Library. In Access, open the Northwind.MDB database.

4. Create a new form with a CommandButton (Command1) and the following code:

         Private Sub Command1_Click ()
         Dim db As Database
           Set db = CurrentDB                               ' Access only
           Set db = DBEngine(0).OpenDatabase("biblio.mdb")  ' Visual Basic
           db.Execute "SELECT * INTO TestImport FROM [test#txt] IN '' " _
                      "'text;database=c:\;FMT=Delimited;HDR=Yes'"
           db.Close
         End Sub
   
   

5. Run the project and click the CommandButton to import the data.

6. Examine the contents of the TestImport table and note that the Desc column has the leading spaces truncated for Description 1, which did not use quotes, but they are present for Description 2, which did use quotes.

1. The symptoms are also present when using Access' File|Get External Data menu command and via the TransferText macro action and the TransferText method of the DoCmd object, all of which use the Text IISAM driver.

2. The symptoms probably also apply to previous versions of Jet but have not been tested with them.

REFERENCES

Visual Basic and Access help topic: IN CLAUSE

(c) Microsoft Corporation 1998, All Rights Reserved. Contributions by Malcolm Stewart, Microsoft Corporation