Insert multiple records to Microsoft Access database

Did not find a simple answer as to how to insert multiple rows of raw data into an Access database using an Insert Into SQL statement, this post is one of many to point out that VALUES is for single-row inserts, and you need to use a SELECT to insert more than 1 row - which means your values have to already be in the database.

I don't believe there's a straightforward way to do it with a single SQL statement, but you can use free MyOLEDBExpress database editing tool to accomplish it by cutting/pasting your columns of data from Excel spreadsheet or other source directly into a table. If you are combining data with values already in the database you can use a SELECT clause with the INSERT INTO statement to extract the insert values from tables.

It may be worth the effort if you have hundreds of rows of data or more. Here's the Insert statement after the temp table has been created.

INSERT INTO the_Access_Table (field1, field2) SELECT col1, col2 FROM temp_Table INNER JOIN other_Table ....

VB.net Opening Connection to SQLServer

Was unable to connect from Visual Basic .NET 2008 to a SQL Server Express 2008 database using the online examples. I was getting the error "network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible"

Changing from Data Source=(local) to Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS fixed the issue

Full example:

Dim myConnection As SqlConnection
Dim myCommand As SqlCommand
Dim dr As SqlDataReader

myConnection = New SqlConnection("Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;User ID=youruser;Password=yourpassword;Initial Catalog=yourdatabase")

Try
myConnection.Open()

myCommand = New SqlCommand("Select * from tblRoom", myConnection)

dr = myCommand.ExecuteReader()

While dr.Read()

MessageBox.Show("Field1 " & dr(0).ToString() & " Field2 " & dr(1).ToString())

End While
dr.Close()
myConnection.Close()

Catch e As Exception
'handle errors
End Try

JDI thread evaluations - Exception processing async thread queue

After some debugging Eclipse may throw an async thread exception every time it hits a breakpoint. The message is along the lines of

JDI thread evaluations
Exception processing async thread queue

You can clean this up by removing all watch statements and all breakpoints and restarting Eclipse.

Firebird -902 error localhost refused connection

Seems too obvious but you will get this error if you try to Connect after you Stop or Pause your Firebird Server service. More common causes are amply documented on the web - Firewall blocking and Incorrect port # (default is 3050)

Launching CHM help file from a Java application on Windows

Seems like an obvious need but could not find an example for how to launch a compiled HTML help file from inside a Java JAR application on a Windows machine, so here's one:

String myHelpfile = path + "help.chm";
String[] command = { "hh.exe", myHelpfile };
try {
Process proc = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(command);
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}

Removing requirement for NET Framework 3.5 from setup projects

A new setup and deployment project in Visual Basic 2008 will by default require .NET Framework 3.5 on the target machine

If your application targets .NET Framework 2.0 this is a waste of time

To change the requirement right-click on your setup project, select View, Launch Conditions, go to properties of the ".NET Framework" item under the Launch Conditions node and change the Version property to 2.0.50727

How to find the control that generated a postback

Had a little trouble finding a good example of how to identify the control that generated a postback within the page_load

There's a nice article for C#, after a bit of tinkering here's a VB implementation:

Public Function GetPostBackControl(ByVal curPage As Page) As Control

 Dim foundControl As Control
 Dim controlName As String = curPage.Request.Params.Get("__EVENTTARGET")

 If (Not controlName Is Nothing And controlName <> "") Then
  foundControl = curPage.FindControl(controlName)
 Else
  ' control causing postback must be a Button or imageButton
  For Each controlName In curPage.Request.Form.AllKeys

   ' image buttons have a ".x" or ".y" appended to name string
   If (controlName.EndsWith(".x") Or controlName.EndsWith(".y")) then
    controlName = controlName.Substring(0, controlName.Length - 2)
   End If

   Dim c As Control = curPage.FindControl(controlName)

   If (TypeOf c Is Button Or TypeOf c Is ImageButton) Then
    'first button we find is the one that caused the postback
    foundControl = c
    Exit For
   End If
  Next
 End If

 GetPostBackControl = foundControl

End Function