Question

I am looking for a way to create a custom property in access with VBA.

Here’s how far I am and where I am stuck:

A custom property’s value (whose name is foo) can be read like so:

Dim cnt As Container
Dim doc As Document

Set cnt = DBEngine(0)(0).Containers!Databases
Set doc = cnt.Documents!userDefined

doc.Properties.Refresh
Debug.Print (doc.Properties!foo)

Similary, I can create a new property:

doc.Properties.Append doc.CreateProperty("vba created", dbText, "yes")

Now, the problem is:

Set doc = cnt.Documents!userDefined

does only work when I have already at least one custom property in the mdb. So, in order to create a custom property with VBA, I need to create a custom property.

I don’t want to create this custom property manually (which would work) because I need
to create a few MDBs with VBA and would like to do everything without manual intervention.

Thanks for any pointer to the right direction

Rene

EDIT for clarity

Here’s a (trimmed down) code that I hope can be used to demonstrate what I cannot accomplish:

option explicit

public sub add_user_defined_property ()

on error goto error_lbl

  dim ac  as access.application
  dim cnt as dao.container
  dim doc as dao.document
  dim prp as dao.property
  dim db  as dao.database

  dim mdb_name as string
      mdb_name = "c:\temp\cust_prop_test.mdb"

  set ac = new access.application
  set db = ac.dbEngine.workspaces(0).createDatabase(mdb_name, dbLangGeneral, 0)

  ac.openCurrentDatabase(mdb_name)

' set cnt = DBEngine(0)(0).Containers("Databases")
  set cnt = db.containers("Databases")

  ' following line throws "3265 Item not found in this collection"
  set doc = cnt.Documents!UserDefined

  set prp = doc.createProperty("MyNewProperty", dbText, "MyNewProperty")
  doc.properties.append prp

' for Each prp In doc.Properties
'     debug.print "Name = " & prp.Name & ", value = " & prp.Value
' next

error_lbl:

  select case err.number
         case 3265
              msgBox("Expected error occured")
         case else
              msgBox(err.number & vbCrLf & err.description)
  end select

end sub

This code throws the 3265 (Item not found in this collection) error at the line reading

  set doc = cnt.Documents!UserDefined

because (as I think) the mdb is newly created and does not yet contain the userDefined member in cnt.Documents. It would work, if I had already manually added such a property, that is, by opening the mdb file with access, then going to menu File->Database Properties then going to the custom tab.

Answer 1

The problem is that you are using createdatabase to create the DB file. Creating the MDB file this way only creates the MSysDB document object.

To create the database as you are trying to do and be able to set a property in the documents!userdefined object, you must create the database from the application.

To do this, change these lines:

  set ac = new access.application
  set db = ac.dbEngine.workspaces(0).createDatabase(mdb_name, dbLangGeneral, 0)

  ac.openCurrentDatabase(mdb_name)

to:

  set ac = new access.application
  ac.NewCurrentDatabase (mdb_name)

  Set db = ac.CurrentDb

This will create a .mdb file and it will have 3 documents in it named MSysDb, SummaryInfo and UserDefined.

Your code helped me solve the problem I was working on, hopefully this helps you.