Filetables in SQL 2012 and Access 2013

[gotlength]

Hi everyone! I'm new to the forum and I have found it very helpful thank you very much.

I am also a newbie to access and sql.

How do you use a SQL 2012 filetable in Access 2013? I can link the table in Access, but I get the error: "ODBC--cal failed".

It then pulls up the table and I can see the columns but no data. Each column just has #Name? in it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[mdlueck]

I looked up the capability you reference:

FileTables (SQL Server)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff929144.aspx

Looks like MS's answer to IBM having put file extenders into DB2 UDB when it first came out back in the mid 1990's.

I have no idea what you might be trying to write stored files out to disk / read them from disk.

Nor what type of VBA variable you might use capable of holding entire files.

It sounds like you are merely trying to view a FileTables table with an Access front end, which I am not surprised you would see #Name? Some similar error in Access appears when viewing a table with a BIGINT data type column, as example.

 

[gotlength]

Thanks for the link.

I'm trying to store attachments in the database from access. I could use filestream, (which I don't know how to do yet), but I figure that filetables would be a better option.

 

[mdlueck]

For text based attachments, use the varchar(MAX) column type, and for binary based attachments, use the varbinary(MAX) column type. This will support up to a 2GB file.

As for a VBA variable type capable of holding the entire file, I have no idea how you might accomplish that feat. With Access, VBA must be the transport between the file system and driving the Stored Procedure to interface with the database.