select from multiple records

[richard2007]

i am stuck on a little problem. i have a set in which a child table records clients address over the last 3 years. there are usually 2 or more addresses for each parent.

in the parent table is fields to record the clients correspondence address (can only ever be 1 correspondence address), which may be one of the addresses already recorded in the child table.

i would like to give my user the option to select from one of these addresses and have been playing with ideas on how to do this.

so far i have a button which invokes a xdialog form. this form shows all of the addresses in the child table (trying to filter on current record) user selects address and then the correspondence address fields are populated with the values from the selected address.

i am nearly there (i think). when i have created the xdialog, i seem to be only able to collect 1 of the values from the child record whereas there are 5 values i need. so effectively the only data i am passing to the correspondence address fields is the postcode.

how can i pass all 5 fields across and how do i filter on the current record?

thanks
richard

[richard2007]

Re: select from multiple records

more - ill try to simplify my problem.

user presses button for parent record which runs a scipt to

view child records
user selects one record
pass the field values of the chosen record to variables.

set the values of the variables to fields in the parent record.

i can do this using a form, but i thought there must be a better way using dialog or xdialog.

hope this makes it a little clearer.

[Scott Emerick]

Re: select from multiple records

Richard,

I am not sure what object you are using for your list in the xdialog so I can not be specific.

When you open the xdialog you can pass the current record key value to the list object, for example if your key value is ContactID, when you pass this to the xdialog, it will filter your list to the current value of ContactID.

Now, for the other problem, you are only getting the one value because the list object is only returning one value. Again, depending on the list object your using dictates how to handle multiple values. If you can return multiple values from the list object, you would then need to use a delimiter so you can parse the return out.

Here is a quick example:
Let's say your list object returns Address, City, State, Zip .. it should look something like:
Return = ADDRESS^CITY^STATE^ZIP

Then you would parse it out:
Address = word(return,1,"^")
City = word(return,2,"^")
State = word(return,3,"^")
Zip = word(return,4,"^")

Now if you can not return multiple values from the list object, you can do the same thing by using Lookup() with your return value to get the rest of your values and then parse it out.

Hope this helps ... hard to answer with out knowing what you have

Scott

[richard2007]

Re: select from multiple records

i scott,

thanks for your help. helped me undestand xdialog a bit better and i was able to create a record select list with all of the fields, however i could see no way of pasisng all 5 fields to vaiable for use in other fields.

if the correspondence address i was populating was maybe a rtf object with no other user input, i feel this owuld have worked fine, but sometimes the correspondence address could be different to those already entered.

in the end, i just created a small form with a browse filtered to the current parent record. then i added button to collect the values in to variables and pass these to the parent form.

i just tried to use dialog as i have read a bit about them and they seem to be the way forward for user interaction.

thanks again

richard

[Mike Wilson]

Re: select from multiple records

Richard,
For the sake of completeness, the attached is an example of what Scott was referring to using an Xdialog and delimited list box addresses.

[richard2007]

Re: select from multiple records

mike,

this is exactly what i was trying to achieve. in this portion of your code

'show choice in text box
dim vheader as C
vheader = "Chosen address" + crlf() + "===========================" + crlf() 

' adjust for no add2 value
dim vaddpick as C
if vadd2 = "" then
	vaddpick = vadd1 + crlf() + vcity + space(3) + vstate + space(3) + vzip
else
	vaddpick = vadd1 + crlf() + vadd2 + crlf() + vcity + space(3) + vstate + space(3) + vzip
end if

parentform:Text1.text = vheader + vaddpick

END FUNCTION

i am thinking that i can use these variables to populate fields in the parent form rather than populate the rtf object.

in terms of performance or design is there greater benefit from this method over the method i ended up with. (open form with filtered browse, select record, click button which gets values into variables, set values on parent form from variables and closes form).

thanks

richard

[Mike Wilson]

Re: select from multiple records

Actually Richard,
I guess I am not seeing why this Browse to select the addresses can't or isn't on the original form as it is in the example.

But, as far as performance, both the xdialog script and opening a second form result in opening another instance of the child table, filtered. The xdialog script is probably a bit faster, but a form and a browse offer more capabilities that are easier to produce on the object (style, buttons, secondary scripts, etc).

[richard2007]

Re: select from multiple records

mike,

your right, it is in the original form and i dont know why i didnt just use this for setting the correspondence address fields. they are even on the same page. guess i just had it in my head that the way i have done it was the way to do it.

i do need to use this feature again later to populate the mortgaged property address fields which is in a different page, so i guess this is where it will come in useful.

thanks again