jetdb CLI

Read-only CLI for Microsoft Access (.mdb / .accdb) databases. Single Rust binary, no runtime dependencies.

cargo install jetdb-cli

Operating Rules

jetdb [--password <PASS>] <COMMAND> [OPTIONS] <FILE> [ARGS]

• --password is a global flag — it may appear before or after the subcommand.
• Object names (table, query, VBA module, form, report, prop target) are matched by exact-case string comparison. Always quote them — Access names commonly contain spaces, multibyte characters, and case-sensitive variants. Use the relevant list command as the source of truth; never guess a name.
• Stdout carries successful payload; warnings and runtime errors go to stderr as jetdb: ... (warnings as jetdb: warning: ...).
• Exit codes: success → 0, runtime error → 1, invalid CLI arguments → 2 (Clap default, stderr starts with error:).
• list-style commands with no data → exit 0 with empty stdout (not an error).
• export and vba show stream their full result to stdout. Always redirect large output to a file (> out.csv) and inspect the file — do not let the agent read the raw stream.
• After every export, scan stderr for jetdb: warning: N row(s) skipped. Exit code is still 0 but the CSV is incomplete in that case.
• Text decoding: Jet3 (Access 97) uses Latin-1, Jet4+ and ACE use UTF-16LE; both are emitted as UTF-8. Jet3 databases authored on non-Latin-1 systems (e.g. Japanese CP932) may surface as mojibake — that limitation is in the source file, not in the conversion.

Commands

ver — Engine version

jetdb ver <FILE>              # Short token: JET3 | JET4 | ACE12 .. ACE17
jetdb ver -l <FILE>           # Long form, e.g. "Jet4 (Access 2000/2003)"

tables — List tables

jetdb tables <FILE>           # User tables, one per line, sorted
jetdb tables -s <FILE>        # Include system tables (MSys*)
jetdb tables -T <FILE>        # Prefix type name (table / systable), tab-separated
jetdb tables -t <FILE>        # Prefix numeric type code, tab-separated

-t and -T are mutually exclusive.

Output example:

$ jetdb tables -s -T data.mdb
systable	MSysACEs
systable	MSysObjects
table	Customers
table	Orders

schema — Table structure and DDL

jetdb schema <FILE>                      # All user tables, human-readable
jetdb schema <FILE> -T <TABLE>           # Single table
jetdb schema <FILE> --ddl sqlite         # sqlite | postgres | mysql | access
jetdb schema <FILE> --no-indexes --no-relations

--no-indexes and --no-relations apply to both human and DDL output. Human form prints Columns:, Indexes:, Relationships: sections. DDL form emits CREATE TABLE, CREATE INDEX, and ALTER TABLE ... ADD CONSTRAINT ... FOREIGN KEY statements.

Output example (human-readable):

Table: Customers

  Columns:
    ID    Long         NOT NULL AUTO
    Name  Text(100)
    Email Text(200)

  Indexes:
    PrimaryKey  [ID ASC]  UNIQUE REQUIRED

export — CSV export

jetdb export <FILE> <TABLE>                              # RFC 4180 CSV to stdout
jetdb export <FILE> <TABLE> -H                           # Suppress header row
jetdb export <FILE> <TABLE> -d $'\t'                     # Tab-delimited (literal "\t" does NOT work)
jetdb export <FILE> <TABLE> -D "%Y-%m-%d"                # Date format (strftime)
jetdb export <FILE> <TABLE> -T "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S"       # DateTime format
jetdb export <FILE> <TABLE> -b hex                       # Binary mode (default: hex)
jetdb export <FILE> <TABLE> -0 NULL                      # NULL placeholder (default: empty string)
jetdb export <FILE> <TABLE> -B                           # Booleans as TRUE/FALSE (default: 1/0)
jetdb export <FILE> <TABLE> -s                           # Include replication columns

• -d/--delimiter accepts a string but uses only the first character (warns otherwise). For tab in bash/zsh use -d $'\t'; "\t" is a literal backslash-t.
• -b modes (default hex):
• strip — drop binary entirely (empty cell)
• raw — UTF-8 lossy decode, CSV-escaped only if it contains delimiter / quote / newline
• octal — \NNN per byte
• hex — lowercase hex per byte
• Text and GUID values are always quoted; numeric values are unquoted.
• The full table is read into memory and streamed to stdout. For large tables redirect to a file, then wc -l / head to verify.

Output example:

ID,Name,Email,Active
1,"Alice","[email protected]",1
2,"Bob","[email protected]",0

queries — Saved queries

jetdb queries list <FILE>                  # Space-separated, sorted
jetdb queries list -1 <FILE>               # One per line
jetdb queries list -d , <FILE>             # Custom delimiter (first char only)
jetdb queries show <FILE> <QUERY_NAME>     # Print reconstructed SQL

-1 and -d are mutually exclusive.

vba — VBA modules

jetdb vba list <FILE>                      # Space-separated, sorted
jetdb vba list -1 <FILE>                   # One per line
jetdb vba list -d , <FILE>                 # Custom delimiter
jetdb vba show <FILE> <MODULE_NAME>        # Print full source (UTF-8)

-1 and -d are mutually exclusive.

form — Forms and reports

Jet4 / ACE only. Access 97 (Jet3) does not store form/report design in the MSysAccessStorage format that form parses.

jetdb form list <FILE>                     # Forms + reports, space-separated, sorted
jetdb form list -1 <FILE>                  # One per line
jetdb form list -d , <FILE>                # Custom delimiter
jetdb form list --forms-only <FILE>        # Forms only
jetdb form list --reports-only <FILE>      # Reports only
jetdb form dump <FILE> <NAME>              # Dump default Blob stream to stdout — REDIRECT to file
jetdb form dump <FILE> <NAME> -s typeinfo  # Streams: blob (default) | typeinfo | propdata | blobdelta
jetdb form controls <FILE> <NAME>          # name<TAB>type<TAB>index, one per line
jetdb form props <FILE> <NAME>             # Pretty-printed form / control properties

• --forms-only and --reports-only are mutually exclusive; -1 and -d are mutually exclusive.
• form dump writes raw binary to stdout. Always redirect (> form.blob) — never let the bytes hit the conversation.
• form controls: known control codes resolve to type names (e.g. TextBox, CommandButton, Label); unknown codes appear as 0xNNNN.
• form props: properties come from the Blob payload (RecordSource, ControlSource, Filter, Caption, FontName, Format, event handlers like OnClick, etc.). Binary values render as (N bytes), GUIDs as {…}, booleans as yes/no. Control type names are taken from TypeInfo when available; otherwise the type displays as 0x0000.

Output example (form controls):

$ jetdb form controls data.accdb F_Customers
Txt_Name	TextBox	1
Btn_Save	CommandButton	2
Lbl_Title	Label	3

Output example (form props):

$ jetdb form props data.accdb F_Customers
Form: F_Customers

  Form Properties:
    RecordSource  SELECT * FROM Customers ORDER BY ID;
    Filter        ([Active] = True)
    FontName      MS UI Gothic

  Control: Txt_Name (TextBox)
    Name           Txt_Name
    ControlSource  Name
    FontName       Meiryo UI

prop — Object LvProp

jetdb prop <FILE> <OBJECT_NAME>

Shows LvProp values grouped into Table Properties, per-column blocks, and Additional Properties.

Note: if the object name does not exist, or has no LvProp data, prop exits 0 with empty stdout — there is no "not found" error. Confirm the name against jetdb tables (or the relevant list command) first.

Encrypted Databases

.mdb (Jet3 / Jet4) uses Jet RC4 obfuscation that jetdb undoes transparently — no password needed. .accdb (ACE12+) may be password-protected:

jetdb --password "secret" tables protected.accdb
# or equivalently (--password is global)
jetdb tables protected.accdb --password "secret"

Workflow Patterns

Survey an unknown database

jetdb ver data.mdb
jetdb tables -s data.mdb
jetdb schema data.mdb

Export a table for analysis (always to file)

jetdb tables data.mdb
jetdb schema data.mdb -T Customers
jetdb export data.mdb Customers > customers.csv
head -n 5 customers.csv
wc -l customers.csv

Generate target-RDBMS DDL

jetdb schema data.mdb --ddl postgres > schema.sql

Extract every VBA module to its own file

jetdb vba list -1 data.mdb | while IFS= read -r mod; do
  jetdb vba show data.mdb "$mod" > "${mod}.bas"
done

Snapshot every saved query as one SQL file

jetdb queries list -1 data.mdb | while IFS= read -r q; do
  printf '=== %s ===\n' "$q"
  jetdb queries show data.mdb "$q"
done > queries.sql

Inspect form / report design

jetdb form list data.accdb
jetdb form props data.accdb F_Main
jetdb form controls data.accdb F_Main

Error Behaviour

• File not found / unreadable → exit 1
• Wrong file format → exit 1
• Password required but missing → exit 1, stderr: jetdb: this database is password-protected
• Password incorrect → exit 1, stderr: jetdb: invalid password
• *show / form dump|controls|props with an unknown object name → exit 1
• prop with an unknown object name or no LvProp → exit 0, empty stdout (silent)
• list-style command with no data → exit 0, empty stdout
• Partial export → exit 0 with jetdb: warning: N row(s) skipped on stderr — treat the CSV as incomplete
• Invalid CLI arguments → exit 2, stderr starts with error: