Microsoft Access 2010 : DATA ACCESS WITH ADO (part 3) - Navigating Recordsets

4. Navigating Recordsets

Recordset objects are a collection of Record objects. The current record cursor defines the Record object that the Recordset is currently pointing at. Therefore, navigating through the records is necessary to gather the data from any given Record. A number of methods are available in the Recordset object to complete this task.

4.1. The Move Methods

When a Recordset object is created, and it has records, the current record cursor is automatically moved to the first record. To move forward (and backward, if supported by the cursor) through the records in the Recordset, there are five basic methods, each of which is listed and described in Table 2 below.

The following code provides an example of navigating records:

Public Sub NavigateRecords()

    ' Define Variables
    Dim rs      As New ADODB.Recordset
    Dim results As String

    ' Get a Recordset from one of our previous example functions
    Set rs = OpenRecordsetFromSql

    ' Move through the Recordset
    results = results & "Name: " & rs(3).Value & vbNewLine
    rs.MoveNext
    results = results & "Name: " & rs(3).Value & vbNewLine
    rs.MovePrevious
    results = results & "Name: " & rs(3).Value & vbNewLine
    rs.MoveLast
    results = results & "Name: " & rs(3).Value & vbNewLine
    rs.MoveFirst
    results = results & "Name: " & rs(3).Value & vbNewLine

    ' Show the results
    MsgBox results

End Sub

                                                       

If the cursor is moved before the first record or after the last record, the BOF and EOF properties are set, respectively.

4.2. The Seek Method

The Seek method is the fastest way to find a specific record, but it can only be used with server-side cursors on tables that have been opened as adCmdTableDirect because it specifically relies on the table's indexes (and the indexes reside on the server — not on the client). Naturally, the table must have at least one index for it to search on. And, unfortunately, it is not supported by all providers.

To use the ADO Seek method, three items must be specified: The name of the index key to use, a variant array whose members specify the values to be compared with the key columns, and a SeekEnum constant that defines the kind of Seek to execute. The Recordset object's Index property must be set prior to calling the Seek method.

Public Sub SeekRecord()

    ' Define Variables
    Dim rs     As New ADODB.Recordset
    Dim strSQL As String

    ' Open the Recordset
    strSQL = "SELECT [CONTACTS].* FROM [CONTACTS]"
    rs.Open strSQL, "<Connection to Seek Supported Provider>"

    ' Seek to the record we want
    rs.Index = "ID"
    rs.Seek 4, adSeekFirstEQ

    ' Show the results
    MsgBox "Name: " & rs(3).Value

End Sub

                                                     

If the method finds a record that matches the criteria, the Recordset object's cursor is moved to that row, and if not, to the end of the recordset. So, if no matching record is found, the Recordset object's EOF property is set to True.

4.3. The Find Method

The Recordset.Find method can also be used to navigate to a specific record. The Find method takes four parameters: Criteria, SkipRows, SearchDirection, and Start, but only the Criteria is required. Unless otherwise specified, all searches begin at the current row.

Public Sub FindRecord()

    ' Define Variables
    Dim rs As New ADODB.Recordset

    ' Open the Recordset
    rs.Open "Contacts", CurrentProject.Connection

    ' Find the record we want
    rs.Find "[Last Name] = 'Griffith'"

    ' Show the results
    MsgBox "Name: " & rs("First Name").Value

End Sub

                                                       

Once the record is found, the current record cursor is moved to the record, as shown in the last example.

There are two other interesting points to note about the Find method. First, literal string values for the Criteria parameter can be specified either within single quotes or within hash characters. For example:

"State = 'NY'" or "State = #NY#"

Also, the use of the asterisk as a wildcard character in the Criteria parameter is restricted. It be can specified at the end of the criteria string, or at the beginning and end. But, the asterisk cannot be at the beginning only (without one also being at the end), or in the middle. Table 3 illustrates this point.

4.4. The AbsolutePosition Property

Assuming the provider supports absolute positioning, the AbsolutePosition property enables you to move the cursor to a specific row in the Recordset. For example, to move to the 127^th row, issue the following call:

rs.AbsolutePosition = 127

ADO provides three constants in the CursorPositionEnum to verify the cursor position:

• adPosUnknown: The recordset is empty, or the provider doesn't support absolute positioning.

• adPosBOF: True if the current cursor position is before the first record.

• adPosEOF: True if the current cursor position is after the last record.

The AbsolutePosition property will be set to one of these values if the current record cursor does not point to a valid record.