Alpha Software Mobile Development Tools:   Alpha Anywhere    |   Alpha TransForm subscribe to our YouTube Channel  Follow Us on LinkedIn  Follow Us on Twitter  Follow Us on Facebook
Devcon 2020 Goes Virtual! LEARN MORE >

Announcement

Collapse

The Alpha Software Forum Participation Guidelines

The Alpha Software Forum is a free forum created for Alpha Software Developer Community to ask for help, exchange ideas, and share solutions. Alpha Software strives to create an environment where all members of the community can feel safe to participate. In order to ensure the Alpha Software Forum is a place where all feel welcome, forum participants are expected to behave as follows:
  • Be professional in your conduct
  • Be kind to others
  • Be constructive when giving feedback
  • Be open to new ideas and suggestions
  • Stay on topic


Be sure all comments and threads you post are respectful. Posts that contain any of the following content will be considered a violation of your agreement as a member of the Alpha Software Forum Community and will be moderated:
  • Spam.
  • Vulgar language.
  • Quotes from private conversations without permission, including pricing and other sales related discussions.
  • Personal attacks, insults, or subtle put-downs.
  • Harassment, bullying, threatening, mocking, shaming, or deriding anyone.
  • Sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, or otherwise discriminatory jokes and language.
  • Sexually explicit or violent material, links, or language.
  • Pirated, hacked, or copyright-infringing material.
  • Encouraging of others to engage in the above behaviors.


If a thread or post is found to contain any of the content outlined above, a moderator may choose to take one of the following actions:
  • Remove the Post or Thread - the content is removed from the forum.
  • Place the User in Moderation - all posts and new threads must be approved by a moderator before they are posted.
  • Temporarily Ban the User - user is banned from forum for a period of time.
  • Permanently Ban the User - user is permanently banned from the forum.


Moderators may also rename posts and threads if they are too generic or do not property reflect the content.

Moderators may move threads if they have been posted in the incorrect forum.

Threads/Posts questioning specific moderator decisions or actions (such as "why was a user banned?") are not allowed and will be removed.

The owners of Alpha Software Corporation (Forum Owner) reserve the right to remove, edit, move, or close any thread for any reason; or ban any forum member without notice, reason, or explanation.

Community members are encouraged to click the "Report Post" icon in the lower left of a given post if they feel the post is in violation of the rules. This will alert the Moderators to take a look.

Alpha Software Corporation may amend the guidelines from time to time and may also vary the procedures it sets out where appropriate in a particular case. Your agreement to comply with the guidelines will be deemed agreement to any changes to it.



Bonus TIPS for Successful Posting

Try a Search First
It is highly recommended that a Search be done on your topic before posting, as many questions have been answered in prior posts. As with any search engine, the shorter the search term, the more "hits" will be returned, but the more specific the search term is, the greater the relevance of those "hits". Searching for "table" might well return every message on the board while "tablesum" would greatly restrict the number of messages returned.

When you do post
First, make sure you are posting your question in the correct forum. For example, if you post an issue regarding Desktop applications on the Mobile & Browser Applications board , not only will your question not be seen by the appropriate audience, it may also be removed or relocated.

The more detail you provide about your problem or question, the more likely someone is to understand your request and be able to help. A sample database with a minimum of records (and its support files, zipped together) will make it much easier to diagnose issues with your application. Screen shots of error messages are especially helpful.

When explaining how to reproduce your problem, please be as detailed as possible. Describe every step, click-by-click and keypress-by-keypress. Otherwise when others try to duplicate your problem, they may do something slightly different and end up with different results.

A note about attachments
You may only attach one file to each message. Attachment file size is limited to 2MB. If you need to include several files, you may do so by zipping them into a single archive.

If you forgot to attach your files to your post, please do NOT create a new thread. Instead, reply to your original message and attach the file there.

When attaching screen shots, it is best to attach an image file (.BMP, .JPG, .GIF, .PNG, etc.) or a zip file of several images, as opposed to a Word document containing the screen shots. Because Word documents are prone to viruses, many message board users will not open your Word file, therefore limiting their ability to help you.

Similarly, if you are uploading a zipped archive, you should simply create a .ZIP file and not a self-extracting .EXE as many users will not run your EXE file.
See more
See less

I need help Converting a field without losing data

Collapse
X
Collapse
 
  • Page of 1
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
Previous template Next
    #1

    I need help Converting a field without losing data

    I have an existing table and one of the fields need to be reconfigured for automatic numbering. The field currently holds numbers but is configured as character and I believe I need to change it to numerical in order to have incremental numbering. The key is to be able to make this change without losing the current data in the field. The other option would be to create a separate table and have them linked in the embedded browse and in searches which seems to be the more difficult way to go.
    Tags: None
    #2
    Re: I need help Converting a field without losing data

    I have success just changing the field to numeric before as long as the field contains nothing but numbers. Try it in a backup first.

    You can AI a character field. Be careful to place several zeros in the front of them if doing character.
    Dave Mason
    [email protected]
    Skype is dave.mason46

    Comment

      #3
      Re: I need help Converting a field without losing data

      Backup.copy the table.

      Add a new field to the table define as numeric as needed.

      Use and modify an update operation until you get the data right in the new field.

      Never lose data guaranteed
      Al Buchholz
      Bookwood Systems, LTD
      Weekly QReportBuilder Webinars Thursday 1 pm CST

      Occam's Razor - KISS
      Normalize till it hurts - De-normalize till it works.
      Advice offered and questions asked in the spirit of learning how to fish is better than someone giving you a fish.
      When we triage a problem it is much easier to read sample systems than to read a mind.
      "Make it as simple as possible, but not simpler."
      Albert Einstein

      http://www.iadn.com/images/media/iadn_member.png

      Comment

        #4
        Re: I need help Converting a field without losing data

        Al thanks but what do you mean?
        "Use and modify an update operation until you get the data right in the new field."

        Comment

          #5
          Re: I need help Converting a field without losing data

          Create an update operation that uses the val() function to convert the character digits to a numeric value in the new field. The original data is untouched.

          When satisfied you can remove the character field and optionally rename it to the original character field name.
          There can be only one.

          Comment

            #6
            Re: I need help Converting a field without losing data

            Either method you use can have dire effects on any queries, and other that may be depending on your changes.

            I just change most of the main fields that were using char to num. Was very careful to make sure all were numbers only. Still had to redo the whole app to take care of the problems produced. I was aware in advance of 95%, so it was a good plan for me. It was not easy.
            App appeared faster after, but with 80 tables and 1-5 fields in each, I had a good chance to figure what was faster on that one app.
            Dave Mason
            [email protected]
            Skype is dave.mason46

            Comment

              #7
              Re: I need help Converting a field without losing data

              Ok we use this for writing violations and the field in question is the preprinted violation number. The plan is to go to digital violations using auto incremental numbering. The easiest thing I think would be add a new (numerical) field that would handle this. This fixes the original problem. The biggest issues is when they need to look up previous violation numbers in a query or in the embedded browse. The easiest way if it can be done, may combining both field in the search/ query. How can I accomplish this?

              Comment

              Previous template Next
              Working...
              X