Feedback and Hints, February 2005

If you have a question regarding any of the articles in this journal, or some comments please send them in. If there are any general questions about Unix or Database Administration, I will attempt to answer them.

Feedback:

• Update request for Indy Library
• Update Request for Obot
• Update Request for Sohu-search
• Update Request for Appie

Hints for this month:

• Looking at the Data Dictionary in MS Access

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Update request for Indy Library

From: Adminstration User
Date: Tue,  1 Feb 2005 23:33:53 +1100 (EST)

The following feedback was sent to the PGTS postmaster:

Robot Info Update:
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    Name: Indy Library
 Version:
   Email:
Comments: Update request came from 81.62.187.162 at 2005-02-01 12:33 GMT
     URL: http://www.indyproject.org/


Update accepted (comments added by SysAdmin)

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Update Request for Obot

From: Adminstration User
Date: Wed,  2 Feb 2005 05:26:02 +1100 (EST)

The following feedback has been received by the PGTS postmaster

Robot Info Update:
-----------------
    Name: Obot
 Version:
   Email: xxxxxxxx@yahoo.com
Comments: i  want  u  to  get  more  info
     URL:

There was an email address attached ('x' ed out to hide from SpamBots)
The name was kufjames.

Request came from 192.116.116.101.

Update declined

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Update Request for Sohu-search

From: Adminstration User
Date: Sat,  5 Feb 2005 16:24:53 +1100 (EST)

The following feedback has been received by the PGTS postmaster

Robot Info Update:
-----------------
    Name: Sohu-search
 Version: v7734
   Email:
Comments: Chong-Wong Scraper
     URL: http://search.sohu.com/

Request came from 66.245.14.42

The URL does not appear to be a Robot Information URL

Comments added by SysAdmin

Version update declined (not in agent string)

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Looking at the Data Dictionary in MS Access

Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 12:36:06 +1100
From: Gerry Patterson

It is still difficult to discover any documentation about the MS Access
Data Dictionary. A while ago, I needed to drop tables in an SQL script.
However, I needed to know whether or not they existed, before I tried
dropping them. Otherwise a fatal error condition would occur whenever a
script tried to drop a non-existent table.

The following was my solution to this problem:

=========================================================================

Public Function ZapTable(TabName As String) As Boolean
' Zap a table -- but check first that it exists
' This is a useful subroutine for cleaning up dynamically created tables
Dim dbs As Database
Dim rst As DAO.Recordset
Dim sql As String

    On Error Resume Next
    Set dbs = CurrentDb
    sql = "SELECT * FROM MSysObjects WHERE (MSysObjects.Type = 1) AND (MSysObjects.Flags = 0);"
    Set rst = dbs.OpenRecordset(sql, dbOpenDynaset)
    rst.FindFirst "UCase(Name) = '" & UCase(TabName) & "'"
    If rst.NoMatch Then
        zap_table = False
    Else
        DoCmd.RunSQL "DROP TABLE " & TabName & ";"
        zap_table = True
    End If
    rst.Close

End Function

=========================================================================

To date, I have not been able to find a table that describes columns in
an MS Access database.

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Update Request for Appie

From: Adminstration User
Date: Wed,  9 Feb 2005 05:01:08 +1100 (EST)

The following feedback has been received by the PGTS postmaster

Robot Info Update:
-----------------
    Name: Appie
 Version: 1.1
   Email:
Comments: Appie is the spider used for the Walhello Search Engine
     URL: http://www.walhello.com

Comment added by SysAdmin:
Message from 195.46.221.161 claims this is a spider.

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