External dBase table error


Win9x

Microsoft Access, MS Jet

When connecting external dBase tables in MS Access, be patient of index files. As far as they are files and indices used e.g. by IDAPI and now is this table used in MS Access e.g. for report or query, then problem errects. MS Access (MS Jet) have other sort table than IDAPI. This table is impossible (I don't know how) to control. If MS Access desides from some reason (automatically recognizes index or sort is required) to use index from MDX file, fetches and navigates in the table using either MDX and internal sort table. When there is different order, simply skips records.

It's not only a national character set problem but also letter, digit, sign combination sort. If is necessary use index file only chars, that are the same in both sorted tables, must be guaranted (fex. letters or digits).

If Access writes some record to external table and consequently to MDX index file IDAPI now cannot read MDX corretly and don't see some records.

Setting parameter SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Jet\3.5\Engines\XBase\CollatingSequence to ASCII or International partially helps for national characters (at the expense of huge deceleration - no indecis are used) but no for normal ASCII chars (0..127).

There is no difference between MS Access 95 and 97.