Document Archive

[Blorf]

Hi.

I have a project involving electronicly archiving A/P invoices.

2 questions - 1) I am using access with sql back end. I will use a file search to grab files, can someone provide sample code to bring it into my database.

2) I know the reasons not to do this, embedding files in a database I mean, but I will have about 20,000 documents a year, so is there a better alternative to putting so many files into a directory? It will grow and grow.

Thanks in advance,
ChaZ

There Are 10 Types Of People In The world:
Those That Understand BINARY And Those That Don’t.

http://www.thelegacyreturns.com/

 

[kjv1611]

Wouldn't it better to just store the documents in a directory, and link to those documents from your database rather than importing them? I mean, if the directory grows and grows, it won't be as bad as the database growing.

What I might would do for splitting these up a little, I'd divide them into sub-folders like this:

200901
200902
200903
200904

Or if you prefer or need it this way:

2009
--01
--02
--03
--04

Then you could just link to the files from an index table in your database. Set the filename field to hyperlink format, so all you got to do is click the link to open the file.

Otherwise, I'm not sure what you're really saying you're trying to do. What kind of files are these? Are you doing anything with the files? For instance, are you importing data, or just grabbing picture files?

If you need to move files around programatically, you can look at the FileSystemObject in Access VBA. It has worked out quite well for me on the occasions I needed it.

Hopefully that'll help a little, but I think we need some rewording of the questions, or else some more detailed information.

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[LarrySteele]

I agree with kjv. You already know about database file size, and that's a definite issue. I'd be more concerned with database corruption. Access is generally stable, and I haven't had too many problems. However, Access files have become corrupted. If you follow kjv's excellent suggestion, you'll lose the index to the files. If you were to store them in your file and it corrupts, then you lose all those files.

 

[Blorf]

Thank you both, I had not considered sub directories.

Either way, the back end is SQL, not access, so I am not too concerned with corruption.

ChaZ

There Are 10 Types Of People In The world:
Those That Understand BINARY And Those That Don’t.

http://www.thelegacyreturns.com/