Access Data Analysis Cookbook

Slicing and Dicing to Find the Results You Need

Larger Cover

Slicing and Dicing to Find the Results You Need

By Ken Bluttman, Wayne S. Freeze

Publisher: O'Reilly Media

Released: May 2007

Pages: 368

If you have large quantities of data in a Microsoft Access database, and need to study that data in depth, this book is a data cruncher's dream. Access Data Analysis Cookbook offers practical recipes to solve a variety of common problems that users have with extracting Access data and performing calculations on it. Each recipe includes a discussion on how and why the solution works.

Whether you use Access 2007 or an earlier version, this book will teach you new methods to query data, different ways to move data in and out of Access, how to calculate answers to financial and investment issues, and more. Learn how to apply statistics to summarize business information, how to jump beyond SQL by manipulating data with VBA, how to process dates and times, and even how to reach into the Excel data analysis toolkit. Recipes demonstrate ways to:

Develop basic and sophisticated queries
Apply aggregate functions, custom functions, regular expressions, and crosstabs
Apply queries to perform non-passive activities such as inserting, updating, and deleting data
Create and manipulate tables and queries programmatically
Manage text-based data, including methods to isolate parts of a string and ways to work with numbers that are stored as text
Use arrays, read and write to the Windows registry, encrypt data, and use transaction processing
Use the FileSystemObject, use XML with XSLT, communicate with SQL Server, and exchange data with other Office products
Find answers from time-based data, such as how to add time, count elapsed time, work with leap years, and how to manage time zones in your calculations
Deal with business and finance problems, including methods for calculating depreciation, loan paybacks, and Return on Investment (ROI)
Explore statistical techniques, such as frequency, variance, kurtosis, linear regression, combinations and permutations

Access Data Analysis Cookbook is a one-stop-shop for extracting nuggets of valuable information from your database, and anyone with Access experience will benefit from these tips and techniques, including seasoned developers. If you want to use your data, and not just store it, you'll find this guide indispensable.

Chapter 1 Query Construction
1. Finding Unmatched Records
2. Making AND and OR Do What You Expect
3. Working with Criteria Using the IN Operator
4. Excluding Records with the NOT Operator
5. Parameterizing a Query
6. Returning a Top or Bottom Number of Records
7. Returning Distinct Records
8. Returning Random Records
9. Fine-Tuning Data Filtering with Subqueries
10. Combining Data with Union Queries
11. Inserting On-the-Fly Fields in Select Queries
12. Using Aliases to Simplify Your SQL Statements
13. Creating a Left Join
14. Creating a Right Join
15. Creating an Outer Join
Chapter 2 Calculating with Queries
1. Finding the Sum or Average in a Set of Data
2. Finding the Number of Items per Group
3. Using Expressions in Queries
4. Using Custom Functions in Queries
5. Using Regular Expressions in Queries
6. Using a Cartesian Product to Return All Combinations of Data
7. Creating a Crosstab Query to View Complex Information
Chapter 3 Action Queries
1. Running an Update Query
2. Appending Data
3. Deleting Data
4. Creating Tables with Make-Table Queries
Chapter 4 Managing Tables, Fields, Indexes, and Queries
1. Creating Tables Programmatically
2. Altering the Structure of a Table
3. Creating and Using an Index
4. Programmatically Removing a Table
5. Programmatically Creating a Query
Chapter 5 Working with String Data
1. Returning Characters from the Left or Right Side of a String
2. Returning Characters from the Middle of a String When the Start Position and Length Are Known
3. Returning the Start Position of a Substring When the Characters Are Known
4. Stripping Spaces from the Ends of a String
5. Stripping Spaces from the Middle of a String
6. Replacing One String with Another String
7. Concatenating Data
8. Sorting Numbers That Are Stored as Text
9. Categorizing Characters with ASCII Codes
Chapter 6 Using Programming to Manipulate Data
1. Using Excel Functions from Access
2. Working with In-Memory Data
3. Working with Multidimensional Arrays
4. Sorting an Array
5. Flattening Data
6. Expanding Data
7. Encrypting Data
8. Applying Proximate Matching
9. Using Transaction Processing
10. Reading from and Writing to the Windows Registry
11. Creating Charts
12. Scraping Web HTML
13. Creating Custom Report Formatting
14. Rounding Values
15. Running Word Mail Merges
16. Building a Multifaceted Query Selection Screen
Chapter 7 Importing and Exporting Data
1. Creating an Import/Export Specification
2. Automating Imports and Exports
3. Exporting Data with the FileSystemObject
4. Importing Data with the FileSystemObject
5. Importing and Exporting Using XML
6. Generating XML Schemas
7. Using XSLT on Import or Export
8. Working with XML via the MSXML Parser
9. Reading and Writing XML Attributes
10. Creating an RSS Feed
11. Passing Parameters to SQL Server
12. Handling Returned Values from SQL Server Stored Procedures
13. Working with SQL Server Data Types
14. Handling Embedded Quotation Marks
15. Importing Appointments from the Outlook Calendar
16. Importing Emails from Outlook
17. Working with Outlook Contacts
18. Importing Data from Excel
19. Exporting Data to Excel
20. Talking to PowerPoint
21. Selecting Random Data
Chapter 8 Date and Time Calculations
1. Counting Elapsed Time
2. Counting Elapsed Time with Exceptions
3. Working with Time Zones
4. Working Around Leap Years
5. Isolating the Day, Month, or Year
6. Isolating the Hour, Minute, or Second
7. Adding Time
Chapter 9 Business and Finance Problems
1. Calculating Weighted Averages
2. Calculating a Moving Average
3. Calculating Payback Period
4. Calculating Return on Investment
5. Calculating Straight-Line Depreciation
6. Creating a Loan Payment Schedule
7. Using PivotTables and PivotCharts
8. Creating PivotTables
9. Charting Data
10. Finding Trends
11. Finding Head and Shoulders Patterns
12. Working with Bollinger Bands
13. Calculating Distance Between Zip Codes
Chapter 10 Statistics
1. Creating a Histogram
2. Finding and Comparing the Mean, Mode, and Median
3. Calculating the Variance in a Set of Data
4. Finding the Covariance of Two Data Sets
5. Finding the Correlation of Two Sets of Data
6. Returning All Permutations in a Set of Data
7. Returning All Combinations in a Set of Data
8. Calculating the Frequency of a Value in a Set of Data
9. Generating Growth Rates
10. Determining the Probability Mass Function for a Set of Data
11. Computing the Kurtosis to Understand the Peakedness or Flatness of a Probability Mass Distribution
12. Determining the Skew of a Set of Data
13. Returning a Range of Data by Percentile
14. Determining the Rank of a Data Item
15. Determining the Slope and the Intercept of a Linear Regression
16. Measuring Volatility

Colophon

Title:

Access Data Analysis Cookbook

By:

Ken Bluttman, Wayne S. Freeze

Publisher:

O'Reilly Media

Formats:

Print
Ebook
Safari Books Online

Print:

May 2007

Ebook:

December 2008

Pages:

368

Print ISBN:

978-0-596-10122-0

| ISBN 10:

0-596-10122-8

Ebook ISBN:

978-0-596-15943-6

| ISBN 10:

0-596-15943-9

Colophon

The animal on the cover of Access Data Analysis Cookbook is a crab-eating mongoose (Herpestes urva), an endangered, essentially nocturnal mammal that is also an expert swimmer.

Comparable in size to the stripe-necked mongoose, the four-foot crab-eating mongoose is grayish-brown in color, with a white, contoured stripe running from a corner of its mouth to its shoulder. It has a long, tapered head with a protruding snout, a somewhat rotund body, short, lean legs, and five claws on each paw. An elongated tail normally accounts for two-thirds of its body length.

More aquatic by nature than others of its species, the crab-eating mongoose not only hunts freshwater crabs, it also preys on reptiles, fish, snails, rodents, frogs, insects, birds, and whatever else it can snatch from underneath stones and pull from rock crevices along stream banks and other damp parcels of land.

Though native to Southeast Asia, sightings of the creature in the wild have been relatively rare-in India, the last sighting occurred more than 75 years ago; in HongKong, one sighting occurred more than 50 years ago, but, by luck, a healthy population was apparently discovered in 1988. Other countries that have reported sightings of the crab-eating mongoose include Nepal, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, China, Laos, and Malaysia.

The cover image is from Lydekker's Royal History. The cover font is Adobe ITC Garamond. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe MyriadCondensed; and the code font is LucasFont's TheSans Mono Condensed.

Description

Table of Contents

Product Details

About the Author

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Recommended for You

Chapter 1 Query Construction

Finding Unmatched Records

Making AND and OR Do What You Expect

Working with Criteria Using the IN Operator

Excluding Records with the NOT Operator

Parameterizing a Query

Returning a Top or Bottom Number of Records

Returning Distinct Records

Returning Random Records

Fine-Tuning Data Filtering with Subqueries

Combining Data with Union Queries

Inserting On-the-Fly Fields in Select Queries

Using Aliases to Simplify Your SQL Statements

Creating a Left Join

Creating a Right Join

Creating an Outer Join

Chapter 2 Calculating with Queries

Finding the Sum or Average in a Set of Data

Finding the Number of Items per Group

Using Expressions in Queries

Using Custom Functions in Queries

Using Regular Expressions in Queries

Using a Cartesian Product to Return All Combinations of Data

Creating a Crosstab Query to View Complex Information

Chapter 3 Action Queries

Running an Update Query

Appending Data

Deleting Data

Creating Tables with Make-Table Queries

Chapter 4 Managing Tables, Fields, Indexes, and Queries

Creating Tables Programmatically

Altering the Structure of a Table

Creating and Using an Index

Programmatically Removing a Table

Programmatically Creating a Query

Chapter 5 Working with String Data

Returning Characters from the Left or Right Side of a String

Returning Characters from the Middle of a String When the Start Position and Length Are Known

Returning the Start Position of a Substring When the Characters Are Known

Stripping Spaces from the Ends of a String

Stripping Spaces from the Middle of a String

Replacing One String with Another String

Concatenating Data

Sorting Numbers That Are Stored as Text

Categorizing Characters with ASCII Codes

Chapter 6 Using Programming to Manipulate Data

Using Excel Functions from Access

Working with In-Memory Data

Working with Multidimensional Arrays

Sorting an Array

Flattening Data

Expanding Data

Encrypting Data

Applying Proximate Matching

Using Transaction Processing

Reading from and Writing to the Windows Registry

Creating Charts

Scraping Web HTML

Creating Custom Report Formatting

Rounding Values

Running Word Mail Merges

Building a Multifaceted Query Selection Screen

Chapter 7 Importing and Exporting Data

Creating an Import/Export Specification

Automating Imports and Exports

Exporting Data with the FileSystemObject

Importing Data with the FileSystemObject

Importing and Exporting Using XML

Generating XML Schemas

Using XSLT on Import or Export

Working with XML via the MSXML Parser

Reading and Writing XML Attributes

Creating an RSS Feed

Passing Parameters to SQL Server

Handling Returned Values from SQL Server Stored Procedures

Working with SQL Server Data Types

Handling Embedded Quotation Marks

Importing Appointments from the Outlook Calendar

Importing Emails from Outlook

Working with Outlook Contacts