For completeness sake, I included a LongBinary ( OLE Object) column too. – Here is the DDL statement to create a table with a fixed length Binary and a Varbinary column. To execute any DDL query, just create a new query, do not add any table to it, then switch to SQL view and enter the DDL statement in the SQL Editor window. To create a new table, you use the CREATE TABLE statement. You can use DDL (=Data Definition Language, a subset of SQL) to create a table with a Binary column. Create a Binary / Varbinary column using DDL There are three ways available to create a (Var-)Binary column in a Microsoft Access database.
#Binary editor data q how to#
So how to create a Binary column in a table, if this is not possible in the table designer? The Jet-/ACE-DB-Engine supports fixed length binary fields as well, but Access does not display this option anywhere in its user interface, not even for existing columns.įixed length Binary fields are always padded with zeroes to their maximum length. Its name is confusing, as in SQL there is the Varbinary data type for variable length data and the Binary type for fixed length data. That is exactly what we need for our binary keys.īy default, the Binary data type in Access has variable length. The Binary data type can be up to 510 bytes in length, it can be sorted and indexed. If a table already contains a column of the Binary data type, this column is displayed in the design view of the table and its properties can be edited. So hardly any Access developer knows about the binary data type. Binary.įor some weird reason, the Access team at Microsoft decided, you cannot create a column of this data type in the graphical table designer. Unbeknownst to many, Access has a native data type for short binary data. (The Attachment type is just an OLE Object wrapped in a complex structure.) Binary to the rescue If you look at the Access table designer, you will quickly notice that there is no other binary data type available. Still, we have the blatant wish to sort or index binary data. And there is not much point in sorting Office Documents or pictures by their binary representation either. Indexing such lengthy data would be insane. Theoretically the size of an OLE Object can be up to 1 GB. Can you sort the data in OLE Object column? – For the third time: No!.Can you create any index on an OLE Object column? – No, again.Can the Jet-/ACE-DB-Engine enforce uniqueness of the data in an OLE Object column? – No, sorry, it can’t.If you hear “ key” in a database related context, you should immediately think of some possible implications. So of course we can just store our binary keys in an OLE Object column. So what now?ĭespite its name, OLE Object is primarily a data type to store binary data any binary data. However, sometimes you might be dealing with binary data, which is not any sort of document/file, but rather a short binary key. You use the OLE Object (OLE = Object Linking and Embedding) data type to store this kind of data in an Access table.
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If the binary data in question is a file like a picture, PDF or an Office document, this is no problem at all.
Now and then you want to store binary data in your Microsoft Access database. Exclusively licensed to, all rights reserved. Sort and index binary data in an Access databaseīy Philipp Stiefel, originally published August 23rd, 2016