Access: Overcoming The Max Length (64) of DoCmd.TransferText

The Problem

The other day I ran into a problem with DoCmd.TransferText: it will not accept text files having longer names that 64 characters. Possibly, because 64 characters is the maximum length of an object name in Access.

You will get an error message:

So I tried to find a work around.

My Work Around

First, I created a table in Access to store information about the text files, in this particular case, CSV files.

The I created a VBA script which actually store the information in the table

strMapCSV = CurrentProject.Path & "\"

Set fs = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

Set f = fs.GetFolder(strMapCSV)

For Each f1 In f.files

 If Right(f1.Name, 3) = "csv" And Left(f1.Name, 4) <> "file" Then

   strSQL = "insert into tblCSVfiles (CSVname, CSVsize,CSVdate,CSValias) "

   strSQL = strSQL & " VALUES ('" & Replace(f1.Name, "'", "`") & "'," & f1.Size & ", #" & f1.DateLastModified & "#,'" & "file" & intCounter & ".csv')"

   db.Execute (strSQL)

   intCounter = intCounter + 1

 End If

Next

So, in the table tblCSVfiles all CSV files got an alias like file1.csv etc.

Every time the script is rerun, which is actually done autamatically in this case, the script removes the existing aliasses:

'remove aliasses
Set f = fs.GetFolder(strMapCSV)
 For Each f1 In f.files
   If Left(f1.Name, 4) = "file" Then
     Set f = fs.getfile(strMapCSV & f1.Name)
     f.Delete
  End If
Next

The script also empties the table tblCSVfiles:

db.Execute ("delete from tblcsvfiles")

After that I let the script copy the existing CSV files to their aliasses file1.csv etc.

 'copy CSV's
 intCounter = 1
 Set f = fs.GetFolder(strMapCSV)
  For Each f2 In f.files
    If Right(f2.Name, 3) = "csv" Then
      Set f = fs.getfile(strMapCSV & f2.Name)
      f.copy strMapCSV & "bestand" & intCounter & ".csv"
      intCounter = intCounter + 1
    End If
 Next

After that, I can pick any file from the table tblCSVfiles and use the alias to refer to the shorter named CSV version.

Problem solved.

An Even Better Work Around

As I posted my solution, I received an even better idea from Jack Stockton: the FileSystemObject has both a ShortPath and ShortName.

The much shorter code looks like this:

strMapCSV = CurrentProject.Path & "\"

Set fs = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set f = fs.GetFolder(strMapCSV)
    
For Each f1 In f.files
 If f1.Name = "NOVIBAT_14454_20150615_030440-1234567890_1234567890_1234567890_1234567890_1234567890_1234567890_1234567890.csv"  Then
   strFile = f1.ShortName
 End If
Next

DoCmd.TransferText transfertype:=acImportDelim, _
SpecificationName:="glans", _
tablename:="tblGlans", _
FileName:=strMapCSV & strFile, _
hasfieldnames:=False