[AccessD] OT - Wierd behaviour with DAO and Numbers in Excel

Mark,

In Excel the datatype of each cell is independent of all of its
neighbors unless you explicitly set them.  In Access all data in a
column must be of the same datatype.  When you import data into Access
from Excel, the first nonNull datum in a column will determine the
datatype that Access will try to use for all the rest of the data in
that column.

Remember this difference between Access and Excel and you will avoid a
lot of data conversion problems.

Charles Wortz
Software Development Division
Texas Education Agency
1701 N. Congress Ave
Austin, TX 78701-1494
512-463-9493
CWortz at tea.state.tx.us



-----Original Message-----
From: Mark H [mailto:MarkH at bitgen.co.uk] 
Sent: Tuesday 2003 May 06 03:06
To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: [AccessD] OT - Wierd behaviour with DAO and Numbers in Excel

Hi All...

Sorry this is a bit OT but I thought someone may have seen this before.

I am using Office XP and have a table in a spreadsheet that has a column
which contains either a single character or number. If I load the table
into a recordset using DAO etc. any record where there is a number in
that column comes back as null. If I format the cell as text and edit it
then its ok.

Any ideas on how to avoid this sort of behaviour? Or, more
importantly... Anything else like this worth watching out for?

Thanks in advance

Mark