MDB Reader

Node Library to read data from Access databases.

Installation

npm install mdb-reader

or

yarn add mdb-reader

Compatibility

Node

Node >= v10

Access Database versions

• Access 97 (Jet 3)
• Access 2000, XP and 2003 (Jet 4)
• Access 2010 (ACE14)
• Access 2013 (ACE15)
• Access 2016 (ACE16)

Jet 3 databases were not tested during development

Usage

import { readFileSync } from "fs";
import MDBReader from "mdb-reader";

const buffer = readFileSync("database.mdb");
const reader = new MDBReader(buffer);

reader.getTableNames(); // ['Cats', 'Dogs', 'Cars']

const table = reader.getTable("Cats");
table.getColumnNames(); // ['id', 'name', 'color']
table.getData(); // [{id: 5, name: 'Ashley', color: 'black'}, ...]

API

MDBReader

class MDBReader {
    /**
     * @param buffer Buffer of the database.
     */
    constructor(buffer: Buffer);

    /**
     * Buffer of the database.
     */
    readonly buffer: Buffer;

    getFormat(): "Jet3" | "Jet4";

    /**
     * Returns an array of table names.
     *
     * @param normalTables Includes user tables.
     * @param systemTables Includes system tables.
     * @param linkedTables Includes linked tables.
     */
    getTableNames({
        normalTables,
        systemTables,
        linkedTables,
    }?: {
        normalTables: boolean;
        systemTables: boolean;
        linkedTables: boolean;
    }): string[];

    /**
     * Returns a table by its name.
     *
     * @param name Name of the table. Case sensitive.
     */
    getTable(name: string): Table;
}

Table

class Table {

    /**
     * Name of the table
     */
    readonly name: string,

    /**
     * Number of rows.
     */
    readonly rowCount: number;

    /**
     * Number of columns.
     */
    readonly columnCount: number;

    /**
     * Returns an ordered array of all column definitions.
     */
    getColumns(): Column[];

    /**
     * Returns a column definition by its name.
     *
     * @param name Name of the column. Case sensitive.
     */
    getColumn(name: string): Column;

    /**
     * Returns an ordered array of all column names.
     */
    getColumnNames(): string[];

    /**
     * Returns all rows.
     */
    getData(): {
        [column: string]: number | string | Buffer | Date | boolean | null;
    };
}

Column

interface Column {
    /**
     * Name of the table
     */
    name: string;

    /**
     * Type of the table
     */
    type:
        | "boolean"
        | "byte"
        | "integer"
        | "long"
        | "money"
        | "float"
        | "double"
        | "datetime"
        | "binary"
        | "text"
        | "ole"
        | "memo"
        | "repid"
        | "numeric"
        | "complex";
    size: number;

    fixedLength: boolean;
    nullable: boolean;
    autoLong: boolean;
    autoUUID: boolean;

    /**
     * Only exists if type = 'numeric'
     */
    precision?: number;

    /**
     * Only exists if type = 'numeric'
     */
    scale?: number;
}

Data Types

The data types returned by Table.getData() depends on the column type. Null values are always returned as null.

Column Type	JavaScript Type
boolean	boolean
byte	number
integer	number
long	number
money	number
float	number
double	number
datetime	Date
binary	Buffer
text	string
ole	TBD
memo	TBD
repid	string
numeric	number
complex	number

Resources

MDB Tool

GitHub

Set of applications to read and write Access files, written in C. Main source of knowledge about the file structure and algorithms to extract data from it.

Jackcess

Jackcess

Java library to read and write Access files. It inspired the interface of this library. The databases used for testing are copied from the repository.

License

MIT