Supplying Connection Information for Linking
an External Table

When you link an external table by creating or modifying a TableDef object, you must supply information indicating the type and location of the external database as well as the name of the table you want to link. You can accomplish this by doing one of the following:

• Set the SourceTableName and Connect properties of the TableDef object. This technique has the added advantage of working with existing TableDef objects.
  
  
• Pass the source and connect values as arguments in the CreateTableDef method.

Setting Connection Information with the SourceTableName
and Connect Properties

The following code fragment sets the connection information with the Connect and SourceTableName properties and assumes you want to connect to the table Q1Sales in a FoxPro 3.0 database named Sales. In this example, strDbPath is the path to the Microsoft Jet database:

Dim dbs As Database, tdf As TableDef

Set dbs = OpenDatabase(strDbPath)
' Create a new TableDef object in a Microsoft Jet database.
Set tdf = dbs.CreateTableDef("FirstQuarterSales1996")
' Set the Connect and SourceTableName properties to link the TableDef object.
With tdf
	.Connect = "FoxPro 3.0;DATABASE=C:\JetBook\Samples\FoxTables\Sales"
	.SourceTableName = "Q1Sales"
End With
' Append the linked TableDef object.
dbs.TableDefs.Append tdf

Important Use a semicolon (;) to separate arguments specified in the Connect property. Don’t include any spaces on either side of the semicolon.

Setting Connection Information When You Create the TableDef Object

The following code fragment sets the connection information when you create the TableDef object and assumes you want to connect to the table Q1Sales in a FoxPro 3.0 database named Sales. In this example, dbs is a Database object and tdf is a TableDef object. Note that you must include the value of 0 for the attributes argument:

Set tdf = dbs.CreateTableDef("FirstQuarterSales1996", _
	0, "Q1Sales", "FoxPro 3.0;DATABASE=C:\JetBook\Samples\FoxTables\Sales;")

You can also connect to a data source on an HTTP or FTP server. For example, the following code fragment creates a TableDef object linked to an external FoxPro table on an FTP server:

Set tdf = dbs.CreateTableDef("FirstQuarterSales1996", _
	0, "Q1Sales", "FoxPro 3.0;DATABASE=FTP://WebServer/YTDSales/Sales;")