AUTO INCREMENT FIELD

[Mary ellen decker]

I TRANSFERRED AN ALPH4 FILE TO ALPHA 5 AND ADDED AN AUTO INCREMENT ID FIELD IN THE ALPHA 5 TABLE. tHERE ARE 3000 RECORDS IN THIS TABLE. IS THERE ANYWAY I CAN FILL IN ID'S FOR THESE OLD RECORDS.

[Jim Rowlen]

RE: AUTO INCREMENT FIELD

First turn off the auto increment field rule. Use an index that will put the records in the order you want. Then you could manually enter each in a browse table or write a script to do it for you. Something like (this will need some work - just roughing out one of the possibilities for you)

ValueForField = 1 ' if just doing a numeric, you can do others and/or mix char/nbrs
Tbl = table.current()
Tbl.index_primary_put
Ndx = Tbl.index_primary_put("X") ' where X is the name of the index, use empty () if using record order number which is better

Tbl.fetch.first() ' get 1st rec
Tbl.change_begin() ' change 1st val
Tbl.AutoIncFiledName = ValueForField
Tbl.change_end()

ReEntryPoint: ' do all others
ValueForField = ValueForField + 1
Tbl.fetch_next()
Tbl.change_begin() ' change 1st val
Tbl.AutoIncFiledName = ValueForField
Tbl.change_end()

if Tbl.eof() then ' exit if last record
goto Fin
end if

goto ReEntryPoint ' otherwise do next record

Fin:
end

When it's finished be sure to turn on the auto-increment field rule again. It will increment from the highest RECORD NUMBER, not necessarily the last in your index. To test the increment, just go to a browse and [down arrow] to see the field increment (you don't have to save that record - [up arrow] or [Esc]).

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: AUTO INCREMENT FIELD

How about this for a neat trick?

The Update Genie will permit you to assign serial values to a character field, or to a numeric field.

So, another approach to this would be to turn off (disable) auto increment field rule, then define an index and select it to place the records in the desired order, then define a new Operation, to update your field. Pick update character field or update numeric field depending on the field type at hand.

After running the operation, and verifying that all is well, remember to reactivate your autoincrement field rule. The rule will begin incrementing values as new records are added, and will begin one more than the value of the last physical record in your table.

-- tom

[Jim Rowlen]

RE: AUTO INCREMENT FIELD

Good idea. Didn't know that. Guess I should look at the genies sometime.

[William Perry]

RE: AUTO INCREMENT FIELD

Assuming, since it's an auto-increment field, that the number will be an arbritary id-type number, another approach would simply be to turn off the auto increment field rule and make an update operation that sets the field's value to recno(). That would generate unique id's, which is what you're after, right?

-Bill

[William Perry]

RE: AUTO INCREMENT FIELD

or str(recno()) if it's a character field.