Phone Numbers

[Dennis Hughes]

When I enter a phone number in a set and then sort the recoreds by area codes, I get two groups for every area code. The reason is that some phone numbers have a space between the )at the end of the area code and some do not. How to I fix this?

[dlfeldman]

RE: Phone Numbers

You need to apply a mask. This can be done in the Field Rules section. Once all of your phone numbers are formatted the same way (handled by the mask, your queries, sorts, reports, etc. will all come out in a uniform manner.

[csda1]

RE: Phone Numbers

Dennis,

Or you can sort by an index or query sort expression of

REMSPECIAL(phone_numb)

Regards,

Ira J. Perlow
Computer Systems Design & Associates
[email protected]

[Geoffrey Hollander]

RE: Phone Numbers

Dennis,

While a mask will certainly help you where data entry is concerned, you still have to deal with those numbers that are currently out of wack.

If you are sure that the only space that can occur in the area code is after it, so the first two characters of the phone field are always, "(" + a number, then you can simply search for records with: substr([phone field name], 2, 3) = "[whatever]".

If you import data, have data that can slip through your mask, or have a combination of phone numbers with and without area codes, you can write an XBasic update routine that reformats them throughout the table.

I have one that takes all spaces, dashes, periods (European), and other punctuation out; leaves a number string and then does the following with it:

1. It counts the numbers in each field.

2. If the number of characters is 7, then it reformats the data to: nnn-nnnn; if it counts 10 characters, it reformats the data to: (nnn) nnn-nnnn; if it counts 11 characters, and the first one is 1, it removes the leading 1 and reformats the remaining numbers as in the 10-digit phones.

3. If there is less than 7 characters, or more than 10 (after any leading 1's are removed), then I place an asterisk in the field, followed by the unformatted number string. This way I can easily search for invalid phone numbers and decide what to do with them then.

Hope that this helps...

Best regards,

Geoff Hollander

[Dennis Hughes]

RE: Phone Numbers

I already am using a mask for the phone number. What else could cause the problem?