Data Entry - Multiple Lookup

[David Boomer]

I would like to populate a field using a table lookup... easy enough! BUT the catch is: I want to allow the user to make multiple selections so that the field entry would look like:
ANALYSES TO BE PERFORMED: pH, VOC, ICP, GCMS2

where the values separated by commas are each separate records in the lookup table.
ie I do not want ALPHA to replace the value in the field with the selected value. I want ALPHA to concatenate the selected value onto the end of the current entry.

Any suggestions?

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Data Entry - Multiple Lookup

David, sure. Build a custom series of lookups, or put all the options on a single form arranged in convenient lists of checkboxes.

If you intend to do any sorting or filtering on combinations of the multiple values that will be stored in a single field, you might want to rethink your design. Using a single field for more than one purpose makes things VERY complicated. If the user can input values in any order you will have a devil of a time parsing each field to organize the selections later.

-- tom

[whanigsberg]

RE: Data Entry - Multiple Lookup

David,

I agree with Tom's caveats, but you can do what you want with an xdialog multi-select list box which is a very neat thing. I built one to select multiple email recipients. The only detail you will have to cope with is that coming out of the box the selections are separated by crlfs
e.g.

first selection
second selection
etc

so you run a transform to replace the each crlf with a comma. I also had to do this as email recipients are delimited by commas.

Bill

[David Boomer]

RE: Data Entry - Multiple Lookup

Tom and William;
Thanks for your help!
I'm getting closer... but I have a (stupid?) question...
The following code runs...

'XDialog dialog box to prompt for analyses.
DIM SHARED Analyses as C
DIM SHARED varC_result as C
auto_list_Analyses = table.external_record_content_get("analysis","Analysislblval","Analysislblval","")

temp_count = w_count(auto_list_Analyses,crlf())
DIM a_Analyses[temp_count] as c
a_Analyses.initialize(auto_list_Analyses)
heading_string = "Click on required analytical tests."
footer_string = "Click OK to accept choices."
ok_button_label = "&OK"
cancel_button_label = "&Cancel"
varC_result = ui_dlg_box("Select Analyses",
{endregion};
%dlg%)

ok...
where is the data?
I can't find it in the a_analyses variable or the 5analyses variable ... or anywhere else!
So.... how, specifically, do I get the users choice(s) to my field in the data entry form?
thanks
David

[David Boomer]

RE: Data Entry - Multiple Lookup

What is the best function to perform this transform?
I tried strtrans etc with chr(12) chr(13) but it doesn't seem to work.

Thanks
David

[David Boomer]

RE: Data Entry - Multiple Lookup

Answered my own question!!!

The following worked!!


RepStr = chr(13)+chr(10)

MyVariable = strtran(XInput,RepStr,",",1,50)

... where XInput was the string I got back from the XDialog.