Add/view attachments using MS Access VBA

Question

I\'m trying to use these functions to manage an attachment table without using the in Access interface so people can\'t delete or break stuff, however, I\'m getting Argument

Answer 1

Your first problem comes from the fact that you didn't carefully read the code in the link you mention.
The AddAttachment subroutine is defined as:

AddAttachment(ByRef rstCurrent As DAO.Recordset, _
              ByVal strFieldName As String, _
              ByVal strFilePath As String)

This means that it has 3 mandatory parameters:

• rstCurrent an open recordset for the table where you want to store your file. The file will be added to the recordset current record.

• strFiledNamethe name of the attachment field where the file will be saved. Your tblAttach table that you created in Access must have at least one Attachment field (and probably other fields as well for information related to the attachment so you can find it, like a document name, and ID, maybe the original path of the document, etc).

• strFilePath the absolute path to where the file to be attached is located.

Your second problem is to let users select the file they want through a file dialog:

Public Function SelectFile() As String
    Dim fd As FileDialog
    Set fd = Application.FileDialog(msoFileDialogOpen)
    With fd
        .AllowMultiSelect = False
        .Title = "Please select file to attach"
        If .show = True Then
            SelectFile = .SelectedItems(1)
        Else
            Exit Function
        End If
    End With
    Set fd = Nothing
End Function

Call this function SelectFile() to let the user choose a file. The function will return the full path to the file or an empty string if the operation was cancelled or no file selected.

For letting the user select the name and location of the file when they want to save the attachment, the code is similar:

Public Function SelectSaveAs(initialName As String) As String
    Dim fd As FileDialog
    Set fd = Application.FileDialog(msoFileDialogSaveAs)
    With fd
        .Title = "Save Attachment"
        .InitialFileName = initialName
        If .show = True Then
            SelectSaveAs = .SelectedItems(1)
        Else
            Exit Function
        End If
    End With
End Function

Call SelectSaveAs("toto.xls") for instance to suggest a name for the attachment and let the user select where they will save it (and they can change the name as well). The function will return the full path to the file where you will save the attachment.

Now, you can put everything together.

Say you have created a tblAttach that has a Files field in it.
We can rewrite the test in the link you mention as such:

    Dim dbs As DAO.database
    Dim rst As DAO.RecordSet

    ' Ask the user for the file
    Dim filepath As String
    filepath = SelectFile()

    ' Check that the user selected something
    If Len(filepath) = 0 Then
        Debug.Assert "No file selected!"
        Exit Sub
    End If

    Set dbs = CurrentDb
    Set rst = dbs.OpenRecordset("tblAttach")

    ' Add a new row and an attachment
    rst.AddNew
    AddAttachment rst, "Files", filepath
    rst.Update

    ' Close the recordset
    rst.Close
    Set rst = Nothing
    Set dbs = Nothing

To let the user save back the file, you would do something similar: open the recordset, move to the record that contains the file you want to save, ask the user for the filename, then pass all this information to the SaveAttachment subroutine.

Answer 2

'----- code to browse, select file and attach to access table
'----- Thanks a lot for earlier submissions, I have just put together all related codes
'----- the code is to add attachments to the attachment field in Ms Access Table. If you don't want to bring up built in form, you can use this code to browse the file and attach
'------ please add this code as Module in Ms Access.  
'------ being a public function, you call this code from any form just by adding 4 parameters  for example  Table name is EmpMaster, Attachment field name is Empcertificate, name of the ID field is EmpID, record ID number say 101
'----- Add_Attachment "EmpMaster", "Empcertificate", "EmpID", 101
'---- it works for me

Option Compare Database
Public Function Add_Attachment(strTableName, 
strAttachField, strIDfield As String, i As Long)

'------------ code to browse file and select file to attach
    Dim fd As FileDialog
    Dim oFD As Variant
    Dim strFileName As String

    Set fd = Application.FileDialog(msoFileDialogFilePicker)
    With fd
        .ButtonName = "Select"
        .AllowMultiSelect = False
        .Title = "Choose File"
        .InitialView = msoFileDialogViewDetails
        .Show

        For Each oFD In .SelectedItems
            strFileName = oFD
        Next oFD
        On Error GoTo 0
    End With

    Set fd = Nothing

'------------ from here code for file attachment process

    Dim cdb As DAO.Database, rstMain As DAO.Recordset, rstAttach As DAO.Recordset2, _
        fldAttach As DAO.Field2
    Set cdb = CurrentDb
    Set rstMain = cdb.OpenRecordset("SELECT " & strAttachField & " FROM " & strTableName & " where " & strIDfield & "= " & i, dbOpenDynaset)

    rstMain.Edit
   Set rstAttach = rstMain(strAttachField).Value
    rstAttach.AddNew

    Set fldAttach = rstAttach.Fields("FileData")

    fldAttach.LoadFromFile strFileName
    rstAttach.Update
    rstAttach.Close
    Set rstAttach = Nothing
    rstMain.Update
    rstMain.MoveNext
rstMain.Close
Set rstMain = Nothing
Set cdb = Nothing
End Function