Storing and extracting binary files in Access

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Dave - 17 Feb 2006 09:27 GMT

Hello,

I am wondering about including binary files in my MS Access database
application. I want to keep my application as just a single MDE or MDB
file, but the users of the app may need some additional files. One file
is an ODBC driver for connecting to an external database, this is a 120
kb DLL. The other is a 20 kb PDF help document for using the database
application. I am wondering if it is possible to store these files
within the database and programattically write them to some directory
on disk when the user clicks a button on a form.

Thanks for any advice,
Dave

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Anthony England - 17 Feb 2006 09:49 GMT

> Hello,
>
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> Thanks for any advice,
> Dave

You could store such a file as a binary large object bitmap (BLOB) where the
whole data for the file is stored in the field of a table. See
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=210486 for more.
In fact, you could even store the file data in a code module, where the data
is held as a series of ascii strings representing the binary data which is
then written out to a file. This approach is less standard and you would
need to write a routine which would read the file data and then effectively
write the vba for you. I've done it like this before, but perhaps the first
idea is easier to recommend.

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