Export all MS Access SQL queries to text files

Question

I have to document an MS Access database with many many macros queries, etc. I wish to use code to extract each SQL query to a file which is named the same as the query, eg

Answer 1

Hope this helps.

Public Function query_print()
Dim db As Database
Dim qr As QueryDef

Set db = CurrentDb

For Each qr In db.QueryDefs
  TextOut (qr.Name)
  TextOut (qr.SQL)
  TextOut (String(100, "-"))
Next
End Function

Public Sub TextOut(OutputString As String)

    Dim fh As Long

    fh = FreeFile
    Open "c:\File.txt" For Append As fh
    Print #fh, OutputString
    Close fh

End Sub

Answer 2

This should get you started:

  Dim db As DAO.Database
  Dim qdf As DAO.QueryDef

  Set db = CurrentDB()
  For Each qdf In db.QueryDefs
    Debug.Print qdf.SQL
  Next qdf
  Set qdf = Nothing
  Set db = Nothing

You can use the File System Object or the built-in VBA File I/O features to write the SQL out to a file. I assume you were asking more about how to get the SQL than you were about how to write out the file, but if you need that, say so in a comment and I'll edit the post (or someone will post their own answer with instructions for that).

Answer 3

I modified @andre-bernardes's code to use "|" separators before the query names and ":" separators before the SQL statements. The different separators make it easier to parse the Queries.txt file with python and create a dictionnary of queries and SQL statements. You can then use this dictionary to create views in an SQLite table for example.

VBA code to extract the SQL queries

Public Sub ListQueries()
    ' Modified from André Bernardes
    Dim i As Integer
    Dim ff As Long
    ff = FreeFile()
    Open "C:\Dev\Queries.txt" For Output As #ff
    On Error Resume Next

    For i = 0 To CurrentDb.QueryDefs.Count - 1
        Debug.Print "|" & CurrentDb.QueryDefs(i).Name & ":"
        Print #ff, "|" & CurrentDb.QueryDefs(i).Name & ":"

        Debug.Print CurrentDb.QueryDefs(i).SQL
        Print #ff, CurrentDb.QueryDefs(i).SQL
    Next
End Sub

Python code to parse Queries.txt into a dictionary

queries_file = open(data_path + '/Queries.txt')
queries = queries_file.read().split('|')
l = [x.split(':') for x in queries]
l.pop(0)
table_name_to_query = {name: query for name, query in l}

Create SQLite views from the Access queries

import sqlite3
conn = sqlite3.connect('example.db')
c = conn.cursor()
for table, query in table_name_to_query.items():
    try:
        c.execute("CREATE VIEW `%s` AS %s" % (table,query))
        print("\n\n"+ table + " passed")
        print(query)
    except Exception as e:
        print("\n\n"+ table + " error")
        print(e)
        print(query)

Answer 4

This solution include fields in query

Public Sub ListQueries()
    ' Author:                     Date:               Contact:
    ' André Bernardes             09/09/2010 08:45    bernardess@gmail.com     http://al-bernardes.sites.uol.com.br/
    ' Lista todas as queries da aplicação.
    ' Listening:

    Dim i As Integer
    Dim j As Integer
    Dim k As Integer
    Dim l As Integer

    On Error Resume Next

    For i = 0 To CurrentDb.QueryDefs.Count - 1
        Debug.Print "Query: " & CurrentDb.QueryDefs(i).Name

        For j = 0 To CurrentDb.QueryDefs(i).Fields.Count - 1
            Debug.Print "Field " & CurrentDb.QueryDefs(i).Fields(j).Name
        Next

        Debug.Print "  SQL: " & CurrentDb.QueryDefs(i).SQL
    Next
End Sub

Answer 5

1. In the VB Window, click Tools->References....
2. In the References window add the dependency Microsoft Scripting Runtime by checking it off.

Then this code will export the queries to a file suitable for using grep on:

Sub ExportQueries()

  Dim fso As New FileSystemObject

  Dim stream As TextStream

  Set stream = fso.CreateTextFile("e:\temp\queries.txt")

  Dim db As DAO.Database
  Dim qdf As DAO.QueryDef

  Set db = CurrentDb()
  For Each qdf In db.QueryDefs

    stream.writeline "Name: " & qdf.Name
    stream.writeline qdf.SQL
    stream.writeline "--------------------------"
  Next qdf
  Set qdf = Nothing
  Set db = Nothing

End Sub