Hi everyone,

Just thought I'd let you know about a problem I encountered when using the
undocumented /decompile option.

As I have often found corruption problems in Access 97 which I can't put my
finger on, I have been using the /decompile option regularly, which has, so
far, been working well.

However, today I ran it on an Access 97 database, and it came up with a
message that basically told me there were compile errors in my database.
I have never seen this message before, so I just assumed that it had found
some syntax errors.

I found two syntax errors in modules, corrected them, and tried to "Compile
and Save all modules" to find any other stray ones.
I then found out that one of my other modules (which hadn't contained any
errors before /decompile) had been completely blitzed, and had all VBA code
replaced with what appears to be a view of the compiled code.

I can only imagine that this was the point at which \decompile had bombed
out.

So, in summary, if you are using /decompile, it's definitely worth taking a
backup before running it, as, if there any syntax errors in your db, they
may cause /decompile to abandon, leaving your db in an "in-between" state.

Cheers,

Matt  

[This followup was posted to microsoft.public.access.modulesdaovba and a
copy was sent to the cited author.]

Hi Matt -

Thanks for sharing this with us although it's a bit of a bummer that the
decompile thing isn't as trouble free as we hoped. Did you do a regular
compile operation before running decompile on the mdb that had problems?
Do you have a backup copy that this can be reproduced on? It's be worth
getting a full handle on this if we can.

--
Michael Simcich
AccessTools

says...

Hi Michael,

Unfortunately, the original database I had this problem on is no longer
available. I ended up having to import all the objects from the corrupt
database into a new one, and then import the blitzed module from a backup
copy. The original database has since been deleted.

I must say I have never experienced this with decompile before, and I do
use it fairly regularly. I suspect the original database was in a partly
compiled state (certainly, the code with the syntax errors would not have
been compiled).

As a rule, I try and keep my unsecure skeleton version of my database as
completely uncompiled, and will often run decompile to ensure this is the
case (just in case anyone else has compiled it).

Anyway, it could easily have been a problem on my machine (e.g. memory,
virus scanner etc), as I have not had a problem since.

So, hopefully, decompile can be trusted, but I personally will definitley
be taking backups before decompiling in future.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,

Matt

Thanks for the response Matt. I guess that the rule is to proceed
cautiosly, with a regular compile and compact before the de-compile.

--
Michael Simcich
AccessTools

says...