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How to: Sort Data in a DAO Recordset

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Unless you open a table-type Recordset object and set its Index property, you cannot be sure that records will appear in any specific order. However, you usually want to retrieve records in a specific order. For example, you may want to view invoices arranged by increasing invoice number, or retrieve employee records in alphabetical order by their last names. To see records in a specific order, sort them.

To sort data in a Recordset object that is not a table, use an SQL ORDER BY clause in the query that constructs the Recordset. You can specify an SQL string when you create a QueryDef object, when you create a stored query in a database, or when you use the OpenRecordset method.

You can also filter data, which means you restrict the result set returned by a query to records that meet some criteria. With any type of OpenRecordset object, use an SQL WHERE clause in the original query to filter data.

The following code example opens a dynaset-type Recordset object, and uses an SQL statement to retrieve, filter, and sort records.

Dim dbsNorthwind As DAO.Database 
Dim rstManagers As DAO.Recordset 
 
Set dbsNorthwind = CurrentDb 
Set rstManagers = dbsNorthwind.OpenRecordset("SELECT FirstName, " & _ 
                  "LastName FROM Employees WHERE Title = " & _ 
                  "'Sales Manager' ORDER BY LastName")

One limitation of running an SQL query in an OpenRecordset method is that it has to be recompiled every time you run it. If this query is used frequently, you can improve performance by first creating a stored query using the same SQL statement, and then opening a Recordset object against the query, as shown in the following code example.

Dim dbsNorthwind As DAO.Database 
Dim rstSalesReps As DAO.Recordset 
Dim qdfSalesReps As DAO.QueryDef 
 
Set dbsNorthwind = CurrentDb 
 
Set qdfSalesReps = dbsNorthwind.CreateQueryDef("SalesRepQuery") 
qdfSalesReps.SQL = "SELECT * FROM Employees WHERE Title = " & _ 
                   "'Sales Representative'" 
 
Set rstSalesReps = dbsNorthwind.OpenRecordset("SalesRepQuery")