[AccessD] Should I use Attachments?

Rocky Smolin rockysmolin at bchacc.com
Sun May 15 10:49:37 CDT 2011


Even inside the database don't you need some way to identify the picture - a
title or caption?  So renaming the jpgs is one way to do that and so the
combo box to select the picture has those descriptive file names.  Or in the
table where you store the path and file name of the picture you let the user
enter a short description which shows in the combo box.  Either way the
photos stay outside the db.  If you store them in the db, the photos will
still be stored outside the db somewhere.  If they exist in two places that
opens up possibilities of having the one set not be the same as the other
set.

Still voting for keeping them outside.

However, I am interested in whether or not a graphic file can now be stored
in a db without bloating it.  Please let us know what your experiments
reveal.

Rocky


-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Arthur Fuller
Sent: Sunday, May 15, 2011 8:16 AM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Should I use Attachments?

I've been toying with this new feature, which is basically a binary data
type which a built-in compressor/decompressor. A client and I are
experimenting with it, for one basic reason: a given record might have
associated with it anywhere from 2 to 60 photos. Having that many photos
living in some directory somewhere, especially given their arbitrary names,
can quickly become quite a hassle. On the other hand, simply specifying the
path to a given client's photos seems workable. So I don't yet know which
method we'll choose.

A.

On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 7:25 AM, Jim Dettman <jimdettman at verizon.net> wrote:

>
>  I'm not sure what you mean by "not backward-compatible".  It's a new 
> feature and did not exist in prior versions, so yes, it would not be 
> available in JET (it's an ACE only feature).
>
>  As far as performance, I have not heard anything in that regard.  
> It's not the same animal as an OLE field; there is no OLE wrapper around
the object.
> And the data is compressed to boot.  So bloating DB's is a thing of 
> the past.
>
>  However because of that, you just can't pull the raw data out and 
> move it or use it in some other way.  Also, you still must contend 
> with the ACE DB limit of 2GB.
>
>  Given all that, I would still do it the traditional way as Rocky 
> said; store a path in the DB and keep everything outside of the DB.
>
> Jim.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Darrell 
> Burns
> Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2011 08:33 PM
> To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
> Subject: [AccessD] Should I use Attachments?
>
> New subject: my client wants to link PDF documents to records in an 
> Asset table in an A2007 app. The attachment data type is perfect for 
> what I want to do, but I've heard bad things about it. I know one 
> caveat is that it's not backward-compatible. I've also heard that it's 
> a performance drag. (I tried using OLE fields in A2000 a few years ago 
> and quickly abandoned that approach). The Asset table would range from 
> a few hundred to a couple thousand records per client. I'll be deploying
the app as a runtime.
>
> I'd be interested in hearing the pros & cons of attachments.
>
> Thanx,
> DB
>
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