I have a bunch of data in MS Access. I want to create INSERT statements from the data with the purpose of running them in SQL Server. The table structure between Access and SQL Server is the same. I don't have the option of doing an export/import because I don't have direct access to the SQL Server. It is a web host's server and they only give you a stupid control panel to run scripts. Unfortunately I can't use SQL Server Management Studio against it, or any other tools.
What is the easiest way to generate SQL Server compatible INSERT statements from MS Access data?
Install a copy of SQL Server (perhaps Express) on a machine (your dev machine, a VM, whathaveyou). Ensure your .mdb can be read by this machine.
Use SQL Server to create a Linked Server to your Access database.
DTS/SSIS tables from Access to your local SQL Server.
Export scripts + data from your local SQL Server. Right click your database, select Tasks-> Generate scripts.
choose to script data.
This will ensure that your create statements are followed by the data.
Consider using a mix of Access and Excel.
View your Access table in datasheet view.
Select all rows
Paste into Excel
Insert a new column before Column A.
Build your INSERT statement in this cell.
Insert a comma between each column (insert new column) and single quotes as needed
Insert an end parenthesis
Drag the INSERT statement, commas, and end parentheses downward, copying their values for each row in your table.
ensure you set SET IDENTITY_INSERT MyTable ON before executing that script.
It turns out I found a way that was easier than either of the suggested answers. I went to SQL Server Management Studio and right-clicked on the database, chose Import, and went through the wizard to import from an MS Access datasource. It was fairly painless and straightforward. Then I generated scripts as p. campbell suggested.
Related
I'm new to SQL Server and trying to automatically update tables in SQL Server from tables in MS Access.
I have an Access database of metadata that must be kept updated for sending records to other groups. I also have a database in SQL Server which also has these same metadata tables. Currently these tables in the SQL Server database get updated manually by exporting the Access tables as Excel files, and then importing them into the SQL Server tables.
It's not the most efficient process and could lead to errors in the SQL Server database if someone forgets to check that they are using the most recent data from Access. So I would like to integrate some of the tables from Access to my database in SQL Server. Ideally I would like for the tables in my SQL Server database to be updated whenever Access is updated or at least update the tables automatically in the SQL Server database when I open it.
Would replicating the Access tables be the best? I am using SQL Server 2014 Developer so I think I have this capability. From my understanding, mirroring is for an entire database not just pieces of it. However, I do not want to be able to alter the metadata from SQL Server and have it reflected in Access. I cannot tell if reflecting the tables would do this...?
I also looked at this post about writing multiple insert statements but was confused (What is the best way to auto-generate INSERT statements for a SQL Server table?). Someone else suggested importing all the data into SQL Server and then using an ODBC driver to connect the two, but I'm also not sure how this would update the database in SQL Server anytime Access is updated.
If you have any suggestion and a link to easy to follow tutorial I would really appreciate it!
Thanks
In Access, go to 'External Data', ODBC Database, and connect to the SQL Server database directly - make sure you select 'Link to the data source by creating a linked table' on the first page of the wizard. Now, this linked table is available in Access, but is actually the SQL Server table.
Get rid of the local Access tables, using the new linked tables in their place in whatever queries, forms, reports, etc that you have in Access.
Now, any changes to the tables you see in this Access db ARE changes to the SQL Server database.
I need a bit advice how to solve the following task:
I got a source system based on IBM DB2 (IBMDA400) which has a lot of tables that changes rapidly and daily in structure. I must load specified tables from the DB2 into a MSSQL 2008 R2 Server. Therefore i thought using SSIS is the best choice.
My first attempt was just to add both datasources, drop all tables in MSSQL and recreate them with a "Select * Into #Table From #Table". But I was not able to get this working because I could not connect both OLEDB Connections. I also tried this with an Openrowset statement but the SQL Server does not allow that for security reasons and I am not allowed to change that.
My second try was to manually read the tables from the source and drop and recreate the tables with a for each loop and then load the data via the Data Flow Task. But I got stuck on getting the meta data from the Execute SQL Task... so i dont got the column names and types.
I can not believe that this is too hard to archieve. Why is there no "create table if not exist" checkbox on the Data Flow Task?
Of course i searched for the problem here before but could not find a solution.
Thanks in advance,
Pad
This is the solution i got at the end:
Create a File/Table which is used for selection of the source tables.
Important: Create a linked Server on your SQL Instance or a working Connectionstring for the OPENROWSET (i was not able to do so - i choosed the linked server)
Query source File/Table
Build a loop through the resultset
Use Variables and Script Task to build your query
Drop the destination table
Build another Querystring with INSERT INTO TABLE FROM OPENROWSET (or if you used linked Server OPENQUERY)
Execute this Statement
Done.
As i said above i am not quite happy with this but for now it should be ok. I will update this if i got another solution.
I have a MS Access file containing hundred of tables, I should create these tables using C# at runtime. So I should generate a script and use that query inside C# to create the tables.
Is there a way that MS Access can generate this SQL script automatically?
Best regards
No, Access itself cannot automatically create DDL (CREATE TABLE ...) code like SQL Server can. It is entirely possible that some third-party product might be able to scan through an Access database and write DDL statements for each table, but recommendations for such a third-party product would be off-topic on Stack Overflow.
Also, as mentioned in the comments to the question, creating an empty database file and then creating each table "from scratch" via DDL is not really necessary for an Access database. Since an Access database is just a file you can distribute your application with a database file that already contains the empty tables (and other database objects as required).
You can use an SSIS package to generate the create table command.
Start a new SSIS package. Add a connection manager for the Access database.
Then add a connection manager for a SQL Server database.
When you configure the dataflow task. Select the Access database as the source, then the SQL server as the destination. When choosing the table or view for the destination hit the [New] button and you will get the table creation script from the Access table DDL translated to MS SQL Server.
What is a good way to transfer a table from one SQL Server instance to another server with an available FTP?
Use 'Generate Scripts' to script table creation and use the SSMS Tools' 'Generate Insert Statement' feature to create a script to populate the table. Simple, ad completely disconnected.
And alternative would be to backup the DB, restore it to a parallel DB on the new server, and copy from DB to DB (via SELECT INTO)
Have you tried using a linked server from server A to server B?
Here's one way (using TASKS via SSMS): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms142159.aspx
Here's another way (using SSIS): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/cc511477.aspx
I need to copy some records from our SQLServer 2005 test server to our live server. It's a flat lookup table, so no foreign keys or other referential integrity to worry about.
I could key-in the records again on the live server, but this is tiresome. I could export the test server records and table data in its entirety into an SQL script and run that, but I don't want to overwrite the records present on the live system, only add to them.
How can I select just the records I want and get them transferred or otherwise into the live server? We don't have Sharepoint, which I understand would allow me to copy them directly between the two instances.
If your production SQL server and test SQL server can talk, you could just do in with a SQL insert statement.
first run the following on your test server:
Execute sp_addlinkedserver PRODUCTION_SERVER_NAME
Then just create the insert statement:
INSERT INTO [PRODUCTION_SERVER_NAME].DATABASE_NAME.dbo.TABLE_NAME (Names_of_Columns_to_be_inserted)
SELECT Names_of_Columns_to_be_inserted
FROM TABLE_NAME
I use SQL Server Management Studio and do an Export Task by right-clicking the database and going to Task>Export. I think it works across servers as well as databases but I'm not sure.
An SSIS package would be best suited to do the transfer, it would take literally seconds to setup!
I would just script to sql and run on the other server for quick and dirty transferring. If this is something that you will be doing often and you need to set up a mechanism, SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) which is similar to the older Data Transformation Services (DTS) are designed for this sort of thing. You develop the solution in a mini-Visual Studio environment and can build very complex solutions for moving and transforming data.