Connect to Microsoft Access .mdb database using C#

January 20, 2009 in C#, Database

Here is a simple example that will tell you how to connect to microsoft access (mdb) files in C# .NET. To do this you have to make use OLEDB connector

The first you need is to use OLEDB connector.

First we need to use oledb connector namespace.

using System.Data.OleDb;

Now we need to create an instance of OleDbConnection object. The following will be the connection string required to use as parameter of OleDbConnection instance object

private string conStr = @"Provider=Microsoft.JET.OLEDB.4.0;" + @"data source=contact.mdb;Jet OLEDB:Database Password=123456";

Here contact.mdb is the microsoft access database file located at the same directory to the exe file.
Now we can look at the whole code at once.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Data.OleDb;
using System.Data;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

namespace ConsoleApplication2
{
    public class Program
    {
        private static OleDbConnection con;

        static void Main()
        {
            try
            {
                con = new OleDbConnection(@"Provider=Microsoft.JET.OLEDB.4.0;" + @"data source=contact.mdb;Jet OLEDB:Database Password=123456");  // connection string change database name and password here.
                con.Open(); //connection must be openned
                OleDbCommand cmd = new OleDbCommand("SELECT * from contact", con); // creating query command
                OleDbDataReader reader = cmd.ExecuteReader(); // executes query
                while(reader.Read()) // if can read row from database
                {

                    Console.WriteLine(reader.GetValue(1).ToString() + " = " + reader.GetValue(3).ToString());  // Get column 1 and column 3 value and print
                }
            }
            catch(Exception ex)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Ex: "+ex);  // shows exception message in console if any errors occured
            }
            finally
            {
                con.Close();  // finally closes connection
            }
        }
    }
}

Related posts:

• Connect to mysql database using C#

Tags: .mdb, Microsoft Access