How to link tables with VBA code over ODBC - ms-access

Question

Actually I use a ODBC-Connection to connect Ms Acces to tables of a PostgreSQL-DB. I connect them by using the External Data/Import ODBC-Link command. It works fine.
But how can I use VBA to link my tables?

Answer 1

When using VBA to link a table with ODBC, you can add and APP= argument to specify an application name that will generally show in the properties of the connection on your database server.
For example, here is a sample ODBC Connection string for a linked table:
ODBC;Driver={SQL Server};Server=MyServer\SQLExpress;Database=MyDatabase;APP=My App Title;Trusted_Connection=Yes;
My App Title is the string that will be your Application Name for that connection.
Update 1 In response to further comment by the OP:
Here is sample code to link a table via ODBC in VBA. To facilitate this, you also should always delete the ODBC linked table each time before re-linking it to make sure that your options are respected, and that Microsoft Access updates the schema for the linked table. This example shows a connection string for a SQL Server database, so all you would need to change is the connection string for your PostgreSQL-DB. The remaining VBA code would be the same.
Dim db As DAO.Database
Dim tdf As DAO.TableDef
Dim strConn As String
Dim ODBCTableName as String
Dim AccessTableName as String
Set db = CurrentDb()
ODBCTableName = "dbo.YourTable"
AccessTableName = "YourTable"
strConn = "ODBC;Driver={SQL Server};Server=YOURSERVER\SQLINSTANCE;Database=MYDATABASE;Trusted_Connection=No;UID=MyUserName;PWD=MyPassword"
db.TableDefs.Refresh
For Each tdf In db.TableDefs
If tdf.Name = AccessTableName Then
db.TableDefs.Delete tdf.Name
Exit For
End If
Next tdf
Set tdf = db.CreateTableDef(AccessTableName)
'===============================
'If your connection string includes a password
'and you want the password to be saved, include the following 3 lines of code
'to specify the dbAttachSavePWD attribute of the TableDef being created
'If you don't want to save the password, you would omit these 3 lines of code
'===============================
If InStr(strConn, "PWD=") Then
tdf.Attributes = dbAttachSavePWD
End If
tdf.SourceTableName = ODBCTableName
tdf.Connect = strConn
db.TableDefs.Append tdf

Answer 2

For some reason this code gives Run time error 3170 - Could not find installable ISAM. However, when you add ODBC; at the beginning of the connection string, then it works. So the connection string should look something like:
strConn = "ODBC;DRIVER={MySQL ODBC 5.2 Unicode Driver};" _
& "SERVER=servername;" _
& "DATABASE=databasename;" _
& "UID=username;PWD=password; OPTION=3"