Read Microsoft Access Database in C#

In this article, you’ll learn how to connect and read Microsoft Access 2003 or earlier versions (.mdb).

 

Note: Originally, this article was published on Jan 01, 2000. This is an updated article.

 

The code snippet in this article is a simple console application that connects with an Access 2000 database, reads data from a table, and displays it on the console. The database has a table named, Developer with two columns, Name and Address.

 

The .NET framework has two common approaches, ADO.NET and LINQ to read databases. ADO.NET uses the OLE-DB data provider to read a Microsoft Access database. The OLE-DB classes are defined in the System.Data.OleDb namespace. We must import the System.Data.OleDb namespace in our code using the following definition.

using System.Data.OleDb;

The following code is the complete list of the C# console app that connects with an Access database, opens a connection, reads data, and displays it on the system console.

 

The following code snippet adds a new row in the table. The INSERT SQL query is used to add a new row.

using System;
using System.Data.OleDb;
namespace AccessDBSample {
    class Program {
        static void Main(string[] args) {
            // Connection string and SQL query
            string connectionString = @ "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=C:\Mahesh\Data\Dev.mdb";
            string strSQL = "SELECT * FROM Developer";
            // Create a connection
            using(OleDbConnection connection = new OleDbConnection(connectionString)) {
                // Create a command and set its connection
                OleDbCommand command = new OleDbCommand(strSQL, connection);
                // Open the connection and execute the select command.
                try {
                    // Open connecton
                    connection.Open();
                    // Execute command
                    using(OleDbDataReader reader = command.ExecuteReader()) {
                        Console.WriteLine("------------Original data----------------");
                        while (reader.Read()) {
                            Console.WriteLine("{0} {1}", reader["Name"].ToString(), reader["Address"].ToString());
                        }
                    }
                } catch (Exception ex) {
                    Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
                }
                // The connection is automatically closed becasuse of using block.
            }
            Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }
}

// Add a new row
strSQL = "INSERT INTO Developer(Name, Address) VALUES ('New Developer', 'New Address')";
command = new OleDbCommand(strSQL, connection);
// Execute command
command.ExecuteReader();

The following code snippet updates rows that match with the WHERE condition in the query.

// Update rows
strSQL = "UPDATE Developer SET Name = 'Updated Name' WHERE Name = 'New Developer'";
command = new OleDbCommand(strSQL, connection);
command.ExecuteReader();

The following code snippet deletes rows that match with the WHERE condition.

// Delete rows
strSQL = "DELETE FROM Developer WHERE Name = 'Updated Name'";
command = new OleDbCommand(strSQL, connection);
command.ExecuteReader();

Note: Access 2013 or Access 2016 versions work differently. If you want to work with Access 2013, 2016 or Office 365 databases, visit this article: Connecting C# Application To MS Access Database