Access Hell - A programmers nightmare

[mjmartin]

Here's my dilema:

Here's what I can't figure out:
How did this file get to be 27MB with no data in it?



Here's what I'm going to do:
How do I get out of this mess? (I'm going to completely rewrite it)
Where do I start normalising? (hopefully the redesign will help)

 

[KenHigg]

Try compacting?

ken

 

[ReAn]

Access dosent like deleting stuff when you delete it.

Lets say X represents DATA and Y represents structure info (queries, forms, etc..) and let's say O is blank data

Here's a sample file

YYYYYYXXXXXXXXYYXXXXXXXXYYYYYXXXXYYYYYYYYYXXYYYXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXYYXXXXXXXXXXYYYYYXXXXXXXXXXYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYXXXYYYXYYXXXXYYYXYYXYY

so if you delete most your data (some info is retained, but not much)
you're left with:

YYYYYY00000000YY00000000YYYYY0000YYYYYYYYY00YYY0000000000000000000000000000000000000YYXXXXXXXXXXYYYYY00000000000YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY000YYY0YY0000YYY0YYXYY

see where the wasted space is?
this technique saves time when modifying the database, especially when the .mdb file acts like a db server in itself.

Going to Tools->Database Tools->Compact and repair database would leave you with:

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYXXXXXXXXXXYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYXYY

I hope this helped

 

[mjmartin]

Thanks for the help, compacting worked