flog

I know I'm about 5 years behind the times, but I've recently started playing with the OpenSchema() method of the ADODB.Connection object. You can get at a lot of useful information that way. For example, when importing data, you can read the ForeignKeys schema to figure out the order data needs to be loaded to avoid violating key constraints or get at extended properties, like column descriptions.

Public Function GetColumnDescription(cnn As ADODB.Connection, sTableName As String, 

  sColumnName As String) As String



  Dim rs As ADODB.Recordset

  Dim sDescr As String

  

  ' Init description

  sDescr = ""

  

  Set rs = cnn.OpenSchema(adSchemaColumns)

  With rs

    .Filter = "TABLE_NAME='" & sTableName & "' AND COLUMN_NAME='" & sColumnName & "'"

    If .RecordCount <> 0 Then

      If Not IsBlank(.Fields("DESCRIPTION")) Then

        sDescr = CStr(.Fields("DESCRIPTION").Value)

      End If

    End If

    .Filter = adFilterNone

    .Close

  End With

  Set rs = Nothing

  

  ' Return description

  GetColumnDescription = sDescr

  

End Function