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Relative file paths

Anna Koldeweij

2 years ago

Hi Richard!
I am making a database containing a lot of photographed art works, and I would like to be able to use the database on different systems.
Is it possible to use relative file paths in the database? It does not appear to work, and an online search did not turn up a good solution.
It seems only absolute file paths to images are possible. When I take the database with me on a USB thumb drive, the drive letter often changes when I plug it in on a different system, and the links to the images will then be broken.
Ideally, the database would be in a parent folder, which would also contain subfolders with the linked images in it, and this whole parent folder would be portable to other systems. Do you have any suggestions on how to achieve this?
Thanks!

Juan C Rivera @Reply

2 years ago

What you need to do is set up a system value and you will need to change it as needed.  this will tell Access were to look.
Richard shows this in the ABCD he did a SystemValueT  the table has 3 fields ID Description and Systemvalue.
He later showed the global mod with the following code.  Not sure that this will work with a USB but you will need to change the information and probably exit and restart the database.

Function GetSystemFolder() As String

      GetSystemFolder = GetSystemValue("SystemFolder")

      If GetSystemFolder = "" Then GetSystemFolder = Application.CurrentProject.Path

End Function



Function GetSystemValue(Description As String) As String

      GetSystemValue = Nz(DLookup("SystemValue", "SystemValueT", "Description=""" & Description & """"), "")

End Function

Hope this leads you in the right direction.

Kevin Yip @Reply

2 years ago

Relative paths only work if the absolute path of the parent folder is known. If your drive letter keeps changing, you need to find what that drive letter is before any of your paths can work. One way is to use VBA to loop through all the drive letters ("C" to "Z") and use the Dir() function to check the path you are looking for using that drive letter exists. Watch out for identical paths in different drives. You may have both G:\Myfolder\Myfile.accdb and K:\Myfolder\Myfile.accdb as valid paths, but only K is your thumb drive, for instance.

	Kevin Yip @Reply 2 years ago
There is a way in Windows to manually assign drive letters to drives so they won't be changed. Open File Explorer, right-click on "My PC," and click Manage.

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