OleDbCommand.Prepare error: Size of parameter (VB.NET 2003)

[RG]

OleDbCommand.Prepare error: Size of parameter (VB.NET 2003)

I need to do a SQL INSERT statement into an Access table, and I’d like to
use the exact technique described in the Help file example for
OleDbCommand.Prepare Method.

When I follow the example exactly I get the unhandled exception error message:

“OleDbCommand.Prepare Method requires all parameters to have an explicitly
set type�.

In the “Remarks� of the Help file it warns about this, saying:

Remarks
Before you call Prepare, specify the data type of each parameter in the
statement to be prepared. For each parameter that has a variable length data
type, you must set the Size property to the maximum size needed. Prepare
returns an error if these conditions are not met.
That’s nice, but I can’t understand HOW to indicate the size of the
parameters. I just got confused & lost trying to figure it out.

The example DOES NOT indicate any sizes, it just says:

Dim id As Integer = 20
Dim desc As String = "myFirstRegion"
....
' Create and prepare an SQL statement.
command.CommandText = "insert into Region (RegionID, RegionDescription)
values (@id, @desc)"
command.Parameters.Add("@id", id)
command.Parameters.Add("@desc", desc)
command.Prepare() ' Calling Prepare after having set the Commandtext and
parameters.
command.ExecuteNonQuery()
I even got the same error when I just tried using ONLY an Integer parameter
(such as ‘id’ above); and Integer is a fixed data type at 4 bytes, not
variable (like String).

This is exactly the technique I need to use in my application, so I’d
appreciate anyone’s insight into this.

Thanks.
--
RG