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question - which way is best to populate fields

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    #1

    question - which way is best to populate fields

    I have documents with over a hundred fields that we are producing and which use, for instance State in these different way CA, Calif., California and California. There are thirty or so fields with these different possibilities.

    My question is which is the best way to populate multiple fields and would it be from a separate table or just use one field in the table working in?

    Also, how does one do it? Like Case(Field1 = AK , "Alaska", = AL , Alabama, etc.)
    Tags: None
    #2
    Re: question - which way is best to populate fields

    Are you asking how to translate "AK" to "Alaska" and the reverse should you want to use one or the other in a report, letter, etc?

    Don't know what that would have to do with populating fields.

    Build a translation table, for example for the states, and do a lookuip to it.

    Code:
    st = "Kentucky"
? LOOKUP("TRANS","STATE = "+quote(st),"s_abbrv")
= "KY"
sbrv = "FL"

? lookup("trans","S_abbrv = "+quote(sbrv),"state")
= "FLORIDA        "
    You can have as many lookup tables as you want or the translations can all be in the same table (fields for each pair). Some records will not have values in the state and s_abbrv fields (for example) if there are more than 50 records in another translation pair.
    There can be only one.

    Comment

      #3
      Re: question - which way is best to populate fields

      Hi Bruce,

      I know this is a little deeper than you might want to go for the moment, but the time will come!!!

      Have a look in the help file for CSTATES(). Not knowing what you are doing on your application, this could be of use to you.
      Regards
      Keith Hubert
      Alpha Guild Member
      London.
      KHDB Management Systems
      Skype = keith.hubert


      For your day-to-day Needs, you Need an Alpha Database!

      Comment

        #4
        Re: question - which way is best to populate fields

        Actually this looks like exactly what I need.
        Thank you so very much. Will let you know.
        Bruce

        Comment

          #5
          Re: question - which way is best to populate fields

          Question:

          I don't get how to use this as I am not sure how the symbols work.

          Could you write out the specific code to put in AL, AK, AR, AZ
          and then having that in one field, another field to be populated with Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas or Arizona? Somehow I am missing the actual how on this.

          It will have to be a click on this and paste it in, in both cases as this is something I will be using a lot and I am missing the specific how to's at this time.

          Thank you.

          Comment

            #6
            Re: question - which way is best to populate fields

            Hi Bruce,

            I'm not sure what you are asking here.

            Do you want to select from a dropdown a State say "AL", in one field and have another field be filled with "Alaska"?
            Regards
            Keith Hubert
            Alpha Guild Member
            London.
            KHDB Management Systems
            Skype = keith.hubert


            For your day-to-day Needs, you Need an Alpha Database!

            Comment

              #7
              Re: question - which way is best to populate fields

              I have field 1 ST for abbrev. AL, AK, AR, AZ

              I then have field 2 for State for Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona which I want to populate automatically.

              And I have field 3 for State abbrev. Ala., Alaska, Ark., Ariz.

              So, when I fill in field 1 I want the others to fill in automatically with the correct designation. I also don't want any options to my states so it doesn't work well overseas which doesn't matter to me so I am forcing correct match. (Hope I spell everything correctly:)

              Comment

                #8
                Re: question - which way is best to populate fields

                I have field 1 ST for abbrev. AL, AK, AR, AZ
                Where?

                I then have field 2 for State for Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona which I want to populate automatically.
                Why?

                If you build the translation table as suggested you only need one field wherever the user enters the two character state code. If you want to display either the state name or the state abbreviation, you lookup the state code in the translation table and retrieve the desired value.

                There is no reason to store all three variations in each transaction record.
                There can be only one.

                Comment

                  #9
                  Re: question - which way is best to populate fields

                  Bruce,
                  Are you going to have tables used just for this purpose (lookup tables)---having all three fields filled in with the various data?? If so then Stan's script given would seem to be the easiest to do. You could do it all in code as well, but unnecessary really as it would as much work or more to put in all the various possibilities as it would be to create the lookup table.

                  Later--....Or Just listen to Stan!!
                  Mike
                  __________________________________________
                  It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.
                  It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.
                  Henry David Thoreau
                  __________________________________________



                  Comment

                    #10
                    Re: question - which way is best to populate fields

                    So if I want Kentucky always spelled out, but want the user to enter KY, how would I go about doing this on a form?
                    I would create a table with two fields, I suppose: abbreviation and full_spelling.
                    What method would always replace KY with Kentucky?
                    (as an aside, I would probably also replace UK with "The greatest tradition in College Basketball", but I could figure out how to do this from the answer to my first question)
                    (and no, UK has nothing to do with the loosely united group of countries across the pond)
                    Jay
                    Jay Talbott
                    Lexington, KY

                    Comment

                      #11
                      Re: question - which way is best to populate fields

                      Lookup the table and the field with KY in it, but fill with the field Kentucky in it. Easily done in the field rules.

                      Table to lookup = mystates and lfield and fillfield or whatever you wanna name them.
                      Dave Mason
                      [email protected]
                      Skype is dave.mason46

                      Comment

                        #12
                        Re: question - which way is best to populate fields

                        Dave,
                        Thanks for the quick reply, but the field where I want the effect to take place is a character 250 field.
                        So I want:
                        "Patient is from KY"
                        to automatically be converted to:
                        "Patient is from Kentucky"

                        How would I "fire" that change?
                        Jay
                        Jay Talbott
                        Lexington, KY

                        Comment

                          #13
                          Re: question - which way is best to populate fields

                          One way would be a lot more typing(only once though), and I would have to think of something else to help. There is no reason that choosing KY in the look up could not fill in "patient is from Kentucky" if that was in the field used to fill your own.
                          Dave Mason
                          [email protected]
                          Skype is dave.mason46

                          Comment

                            #14
                            Re: question - which way is best to populate fields

                            Dave,
                            I am not sure I understand your response. I cannot choose a lookup in the middle of a narrative.
                            If the narrative is going to change every time, that would not work. For example, the field might be used to describe the patient. It might say:
                            "The patient is from KY and he is tall and good looking"
                            That should translate to:
                            "The patient is from Kentucky and he is tall and good looking"

                            The next record might read:
                            "The patient is from FL and is extremely intelligent"
                            which should translate to:
                            "The patient is from Florida and is extremely intelligent"

                            See what I need?
                            Jay
                            Jay Talbott
                            Lexington, KY

                            Comment

                              #15
                              Re: question - which way is best to populate fields

                              How about stritran() or evaluate_string()?
                              Peter
                              AlphaBase Solutions, LLC

                               [email protected]
                              https://www.alphabasesolutions.com

                              Comment

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