Linked tables field limit

[Rick]

When creating a query using a linked table which has over
500 fields only a portion of those fields appear to be
available (I'm assuming 255). I understand the Access
limit of 255 fields in a table or recordset. That limit
seems to apply to the linked table as well. Is there
anyway to see all of the fields in the linked table in
order to choose any of them to create a query which would
use fewer than the the 255 maximum?

 

[John Nurick]

Hi Rick,

The Text Import Wizard can skip fields, but not in a way that lets you
evade the limit of 255 fields in a record.

I'd handle this by working at the textfile level to create one or more
files with fewer fields, using the Gnu textutils that can be downloaded
from http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/ (or perhaps a Perl or VBScript
script).

The "cut" utility can extract selected fields from a textfile to create
a narrower file. If necessary you can use "cut" to create two or more
files each containing a subset of the original fields (including the
primary key) so you can link them to Accss tables with a one-to-one
relationship. If there's no convenient primary key, you can add one in
the form of a record number with the "nl" utility. (In fact it's even
possible to normalise the data by a succession of textfile operations.)

When creating a query using a linked table which has over
500 fields only a portion of those fields appear to be
available (I'm assuming 255). I understand the Access
limit of 255 fields in a table or recordset. That limit
seems to apply to the linked table as well. Is there
anyway to see all of the fields in the linked table in
order to choose any of them to create a query which would
use fewer than the the 255 maximum?

John Nurick [Microsoft Access MVP]

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