Querying in MS Access 2013 excluding special characters - ms-access-2013

Question

I am trying to create an update query in MS Access where I will pull a few fields of information from one table if one of the fields matches and the rest are blank. For example:
**Table 1**
SKU Description Weight Lead Time
C210657 NULL NULL NULL
221AB0909 NULL NULL NULL
VA12345 NULL NULL NULL
221AB09 NULL NULL NULL
**Table 2**
SKU Description Weight Lead Time
F-210-223.2 Hammer 2.1 3.1
201-ABF-345 Car 12546.0 65.0
C_210657 Apple 0.2 1.0
34_AA_332 Puppy 5.5 55.0
221 AB 0909 Stereo 12.0 875.0
VA12345_123-A Labor 0.0 0.0
So I want the query to fill in columns 2 through 4 of table 1 with information from table 2. All four of the items in table 1 have a match in table 2, there are just special characters (-, _, ., ), that are in the way. How can I have the query ignore them? Thanks

Answer 1

Which way you go depends on what you're willing to do. If it's a big database, you might want to add a new field [SKU_Index] that is SKU with the special characters removed and link on that.
If that's not a possibility, then you can do a calculated subquery and link on the calculated field...but it can be a little slow.
You would need to write a procedure that removes the special characters from a passed string. Let me know if you would like help with that.
Then you do a query on Table 2 like this:
Select SKU2:RemoveSpecialChars([SKU]), Description, Weight, [Lead Time] From [Table 2];
RemoveSpecialChars() would be your procedure.
You save that query (let's call it PreQuery). Create a new query and bring in PreQuery and Table 1 linking SKU from Table 1 to SKU2 from PreQuery, and update the relevant fields.
Ideally, cause storage is cheap, I would keep a second field without the special characters and perhaps index on it.
Here's example code for how that would work:
Public Function RemoveSpclChars(strIn As String) As String
' Comments : removes any special characters
' Parameters: strIn - string to check
' Returns : resulting string with removed special characters, can be empty
'
Dim lngCounter, intChar As Integer
Dim chrTmp As String * 1
Dim strTmp As String
On Error GoTo PROC_ERR
strTmp = ""
' Walk through the string
For lngCounter = 1 To Len(strIn)
' Get the current character
chrTmp = Mid$(strIn, lngCounter)
intChar = Asc(chrTmp)
' Test if alpha or numeric only
If (intChar >= Asc("a") And intChar <= Asc("z")) Or (intChar >= Asc("0") And intChar <= Asc("9")) Then
strTmp = strTmp & chrTmp
End If
Next lngCounter
PROC_EXIT:
RemoveSpclChars = strTmp
Exit Function
PROC_ERR:
Dim strErr As String
strTmp = "ERROR: " & Trim(Str(Err.Number)) & ":" & Err.Description
Resume PROC_EXIT
End Function