Access Cookbook

Save My Queries in a Table for Better Programmatic Access and Security

Problem

Your application uses a lot of queries, and you don’t want these queries available or even visible to the users of your application. Also, you call your queries from VBA code. How can you hide the queries from users and make them easier to retrieve, modify, and execute?

Solution

You can create a query-management table that stores the SQL string of your queries in a memo field. Each query is named and includes a description. This technique allows you to store your queries in a table rather than in the Access collection of queries. You can also create a simple VBA function that you can use to quickly retrieve the SQL string of any of your saved queries.

Open and run frmSavedQueries from 01-15.MDB. After a few moments of processing, the form shown in Figure 1-44 should appear. This form is based on the tblQueryDefs table, which stores a record for each query you save. To add a new query to the table, add a new record and enter the SQL statement in the SQL Text control. You may find it easier to copy the SQL from an existing query (see Step 2 for more details). Type in a name and description. Notice that creation and modification times are automatically updated.

Figure 1-44. The saved queries form, frmSavedQueries

To use a saved query in your code, search the tblQueryDefs table for the name of a query and get ...