VBA - Visual Basic for Applications

The below method will replace all special or escape characters in a provided String.

This is of use, if you have to use before unknown Strings from any source for example in a file name.

Source Code

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' @Author - Alexander Bolte
' @Description - replaces all characters, which match the pattern "[^A-Za-z0-9-_ ]" in a given String.
' @Param aText - a String in which invalid characters should be replaced.
' Returns the handed String from aText excluding all replaced characters.
Public Function replaceSpecialCharacters(ByVal aText As String) As String
    Dim regEx As New RegExp
    Const cReplEscapeChar As String = "[^A-Za-z0-9-_ ]"
    
    regEx.pattern = cReplEscapeChar
    regEx.Global = True
    regEx.IgnoreCase = True
    aText = regEx.Replace(aText, "")
    
    replaceSpecialCharacters = aText
End Function

Enjoy. 

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If you want to export a collection of type Scripting.Dictionary into a text file the below function may come handy.

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The following method exports all available queries in an Access database into individual text files, which are called like the corresponding query.

Source Code

DAO does not provide the support ADODB gives you, therefore this method will only work with queries created and stored in a current MS Access database.

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' @Author - Alexander Bolte
' @ChangeDate - 2016-03-15
' @Description - exports all queries available in current database query definitions.
' @Param trgDir - a String representing a target directory to export
' all queries in current query definition.
' @Returns true, if all queries have been successfully exported into provided target directory.
Function exportQueries(ByVal trgDir As String) As Boolean
    Dim sql As String
    Dim name As String
    Dim q As Object
    Dim trgFile As String
 
    ' Reference a query.
    For Each q In CurrentDb.QueryDefs
        ' Get the SQL from a referenced query as text.
        sql = q.sql
        ' Get a queries name.
        name = q.name
        ' Replace special characters in file name.
        trgFile = trgDir & "\" & VBATools.replaceSpecialCharacters(name) & ".sql"
        ' Delete the target file, if already existing.
        Call VBATools.deleteFileOnHD(trgFile)
        ' Write the query text into a separate text file.
        Call VBATools.writeLineToTextFile(trgFile, sql, False)
    Next
End Function

Resources

The method writeLineToTextFile is not a standard VBA method, but can be found at following URL.

The target encoding should not be UTF-16LE but ASCII, if you intend to use a versioning tool like GIT to keep track of changes in MS Access queries.

Write a String into a text file

Replacing special characters can be a pain, if you do not rely on regular expressions.

Replace special escape characters in String

Delete a file on a users hard disc (VBScript, which can easily be adjusted to VBA).

VBScript to delete file

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