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Export to a text file with the GetString method

Export to a text file with the GetString method

The GetString method of the Recordset object returns a formatted string that contains all the values in each field and each row in the recordset, with your choice of column and row delimited. You can therefore use it to quickly and easily export the recordset to a comma-delimited text file, for later importing it into another database:

Dim rs As New ADODB.Recordset' open the recordset (use a valid connection string for your system)rs.Open "authors", "DSN=pubs", , , adCmdTableOpen "c:authors.dat" For Output As #1' the last argument tells how Null should be renderedPrint #1, rs.GetString(, , ",", vbCrLf, "");Close #1

The problem with this simplicistic approach, however, is that very large Recordset – with thousands of rows or more – generate very large strings, which impact on performance. A better way to create the file is to split the Recordset in smaller blocks of, say, one hundred rows:

Dim rs As New ADODB.Recordset' open the recordset (use a valid connection string for your system)rs.Open "authors", "DSN=pubs", , , adCmdTableOpen "c:authors.dat" For Output As #1Do Until rs.EOF    Print #1, rs.GetString(, 100, ",", vbCrLf, "");LoopClose #1

Note that you can export to a tab-delimited text file simply by modifying the 3rd argument of the GetString method:

    Print #1, rs.GetString(, 100, vbTab, vbCrLf, "");

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