Microsoft Access 2010 Bible

Part II: Programming Microsoft Access

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comply with ANSI SQL-92 (the generally accepted specification for SQL language implementa-

tions), Access SQL shares many similarities with all SQL implementations. Your Access SQL state-

ments run with very few changes in SQL Server or many other database systems.

Although forms and reports do have the ability to work with queries that are stored in an Access

database, many times you’ll find that creating a query on the fly in your code is quicker, easier, and

more flexible than working with Access queries. SQL is relatively easy to understand and work

with. This is a quick overview of SQL statements and how to create them in Access.

Viewing SQL statements in queries

To view the SQL statement that Access creates while building a query, choose View ➪ SQL View from

the tab on the Access ribbon. Figure 13.1 shows a typical SQL statement that returns the product

description, company name, and state for products purchased by contacts in Connecticut or New York.

Don’t be put off by the apparent complexity of the SQL statement in Figure 13.1. The same query

in Design view is shown in Figure 13.2. As you can see, the Access Query Designer hides much of

the complexity of the underlying SQL statement.

FIGURE 13.1

The SQL statement behind the qryProductsSold_NY_CT query in the SQL view window

FIGURE 13.2

The same query in Design view