Converting/Viewing OLE Data as String...

[oldgem]

Hi,
I would like to know how to display the OLE binary data as a string in MS Access.

To elaborate, I am importing contact details from MS Outlook as a link table in Access. The ID field (EntryID) comes across as OLE Object data type and displays as “Long Binary Data” when viewing the data. As an OLE data type cannot be used in relationships/as a key, I need to view/convert this data to a string (1’s and 0’s or hex – I don’t really care).

Once I have the EntryID as a string I can link tables in access to contacts managed in Outlook.

When I view the data using another software program (FME) I can view the OLE data as a string such as: “EF000000198262C0AA6611CD9BC800AA002FC45A060007000000040000011BF3AE12040000031F7D9602” – this is the sort of thing I would like to see/do within Access.

Can anyone help?

Cheers.

 

[lameid]

I don't think VBA is going to like it but my native ideas for a solution...

loop through a recordset...

1) Assign the field to a variable... The implicit type conversion may work.

2) Do a binary logical And with a long series of 1's to return the first fixed bits (number of 1's)... EEK I forget the Logical And operator in Access... Is it the amperestand (&)?

After that I'm out of ideas aside from using a third party control (ActiveX / OLE) to retrieve the data and expose a friendly version as a property that you read out... Talk to your C# friends for that one... You can do more interesting things (usually bad) with variables/pointers in C variants.

Since this is outlook related, you might dig around

http://www.slipstick.com

too.

Happy hunting!

Then again there may be a couple people around here that might actually know a solution.

 

[oldgem]

Hi lameid,

Thanks for the pointers. I’ll have to spend a little time scrubbing up on a few of these skills. Let you know if I have success when a get a spare moment to tackle this problem.

Cheers.