I have a customer table 'tblCustomer' that contains a primary key column called CustID. CustID refers to the Customer as their own ID number.
Now, I am in the process of creating a form that will allow people to add new customers. To do that, I need to generate a new CustID. My CustID starts at '10000' and go up by 1 each time. It is important to note that this field is a text field, not a number field.
There must be an ID, otherwise the record cannot be created as the primary key field is a mandatory field and is also tied to other relationships in the database.
As such, I am creating a button next to the ID field on the form that will generate an ID in the textbox. It needs to start at whatever the custID's highest key value is and increment it by 1. The problem is that it is a text field and cannot change.
I am unsure how to do this, personally. I have tackled it quite a few ways but all lead me back to the same spot - I don't know how to do this with custID being a text value rather than a numerical value. I have been thinking of doing a conversion of some sort as the calculation occurs but I have no idea how to do this at all.
I'm a bit of a newbie with Access, so any help would be appreciated!
Assuming that all CustID's are numbers, you can do the following to get a new ID:
Dim strMax As String
Dim intMax As Integer
strMax = DMax("CustID", "<your table name>")
intMax = CInt(strMax) + 1
strMax will hold the current maximum id, and intMax will hold the new ID. If strMax contains a non numeric value however this code will fail - you would need an error handler to work around it.
Just need to put it in the buttons click event.
Hope this helps!
Simon
Related
I need to create an ID that uses data from the user's input. For example, the first letter is "M" the second is the year of birth that the user inputs, then the two first characters of the province the user lives in (for example, ON for Ontario), and then a sequence of random numbers. Like this: M-1990-ON-0001
Do you have any idea how I can do that?
You can do that as a generated column. ie:
customId text GENERATED ALWAYS AS ('M-'||extract(year from birthdate)::char(4)||'-'||province) STORED
However, you should never make such info a primary key. Just use a key for yourself but do not as a primary key.
DBFiddle demo
If you think about it such a value wouldn't be even unique (same province, same year, two persons for example).
This might be a very stupid question but for the life of me I can't get it to work. I want to create a field in my table called "One" and it's value for all records in the table needs to be 1.
E.G.
Field1 One
A 1
B 1
C 1
.
.
.
I set the field to a number and tried the auto enter data and typed 1 in the data field but it's not updating the values.
Any help is greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance
Simply put, Auto Enter applies to when the record is first created. One can do various other options, but this is the basic use of Auto Enter on a field. You set the value to be auto-entered in the field's options panel under Manage Database; a fixed value, calculated value and so on. This works on all versions of FileMaker.
That said, if this is to be a static value of 1 for all records, you might want to look into a calculation field with a result of 1 and possibly using global storage. This will not work if you need the user to be able to change the value.
I have a problem with a combobox in a form, which displays a "#Name?" error whenever I enter it to select a value.
I am creating a form in MS Access (specifically in Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010) that is a general user interface, meaning that the form itself is not linked to a RecordSet of any kind.
In that form, I create a Combobox, which I link to a "TblSubsystem" table. The table is very simple and designed like that:
ID (primary key, autonumber)
SysShortName, text
SysFullName, text
When I try to select a value in the dropdown list, the testbox of the combobox just displays "#Name?" (actually as soon as I select the combobox, even before I select any value)
The relevant (I think) parameters of the combobox are:
Control Source= "=[TblSubsytem]![ID]"
Row Source= TblSubsystem
Row Source Type= Table/Query
Bound Column= 2
Column Count= 2
Column Width= 0cm;1cm
(I am trying to select and show the short code, but to get the ID as a value for the combobox)
I have another form in the same project, in which a identical setup (also on TblSubsystem) works just fine, with the same values for these parameters, but that Form is linked to a RecordSet (another table). As far as I can tell it is the only difference, so I guess I must be missing something around that, which will seem obvious once I see it...
I have looked for variation of "Ms Access combobox #Name? Error", on stackoverflow and more broadly on the net, but in two days, I haven't seen any post answering my questions. Some are close, but refer to a much more complicated setup, while I think mine should have been pretty straight forward. Trying to adapt the solution to my case (includind recreating the combobox or decompiling the database) didn't help.
Here it was, long question, sorry about that, but hopefully precise enough for some of you guys to help on that. I thank you in advance for any help I can get on that.
#Name is a binding issue. Try setting your bound column to one, that way it only records your primary key and see if that works.
Edit: You've got the combobox referencing your table's primary key as your control source. Keep in mind the control source is the value that is being altered by the application user. Here are some key things to think about when working with comboboxes:
The control source should (typically) reference the foreign key of your table
The row source should reference the text that you want displayed in the box
Bound column should be set to 1, unless your application design requires you to update two fields simultaneously, which is an uncommon practice.
Set your column width to 0;1. This will hide the first field in your row source, which should be your foreign key
An example would look like this:
Control Source: EmployeeID --123456
Row Source: EmployeeID, EmployeeName --123456 | John Doe
A bound column set to 1 would record the value 1234556. A bound column set to 2 would record 123456, John Doe
I have designed a simple database to keep track of company contacts. Now, I am building a form to allow employees to add contacts to the database.
On the form itself, I have all the columns except the primary key (contactID) tied to a text box. I would like the contactID value to be (the total number of entered contacts + 1) when the Add button is clicked. Basically, the first contact entered will have a contactID of 1 (0 + 1 = 1). Maybe the COUNT command factors in?
So, I am looking for assistance with what code I should place in the .Click event. Perhaps it would help to know how similar FoxPro is to SQL.
Thanks
The method you recommend for assigning ContactIDs is not a good idea. If two people are using the application at the same time, they could each create a record with the same ContactID.
My recommendation is that you use VFP's AutoIncrementing Integer capability. That is, set the relevant column to be Integer (AutoInc) in the Table Designer. Then, each new row gets the next available value, but you don't have to do any work to make it happen.
There are various ways to do this. Probably the simplest is to attempt to lock the table with flock() when saving, and if successful do:
calc max id_field to lnMax
Then when inserting your new record use lnMax+1 as the id_field value. Don't forget to
unlock all
... after saving. You'll want to ensure that 'id_field' has an index tag on it, and that you handle the case where someone else might have the table locked.
You can also do it more 'automagically' with a stored procedure.
I have a table like this:
Application,Program,UsedObject
It can have data like this:
A,P1,ZZ
A,P1,BB
A,P2,CC
B,F1,KK
I'd like to create a layout to show:
Application,# of Programs
A,2
B,1
The point is to count the distinct programs.
For the life of me I can't make this work in FileMaker. I've created a summary field to count programs resetting after each group, but because it doesn't eliminate the duplicate programs I get:
A,3
B,1
Any help much appreciated.
Create a a summary field as:
cntApplicaiton = Count of Application
Do this by going into define fields, create a field called cntApplication, type summary. In the options dialogue make the summary field a count on application
Now create a new layout with a subsummary part and nobody. The subsummary should be sorted on Application. Put the Application and cntApplication fields in subsummary. If you enter browse mode and sort by Application you ought to get the data you want.
You can also create a calc field with the formula
GetSummary(cntApplication; Application)
This will allow you to use the total number of Applications with in a record
Since I also generate the data in this form, the solution I've adopted is to fill two tables in FileMaker. One provides the summary view, the other the detailed view.
I think that your problem is down to dupliate records and an inadequate key.
Create a text field called "App_Prog". In the options box set it to an auto-enter calc, unchecking the 'Do not replace...' option, and use the following calc:
Application & "_" & Program
Now create a self join to the table using App_Prog as the field on both sides, and call this 'MatchingApps'.
Now, create (if you don't alread have one) a unique serial number field, 'Counter' say, and make sure that you enter a value in each record. (Find all, click in the field, and use serial number option in'Replace Field Contents...')
Now add a new calc field - Is_Duplicate with the following calc...
If (Counter = MatchingApps::Counter; "Master Record" ; "Duplicate")
Finally, find all, click in the 'Application field, and use 'Replace Field Contents...' with a calculation to force the auto-enter calc for 'App_Prog' to come up with a value.
Where does this get you? You should now have a set of records that are marker either "Master Record" or "Duplicate". Do a find on "Master Record", and then you can perform your summary (by Application) to do a count of distinct application-program pairs.
If you have access to custom functions (you need FileMaker Pro Advanced), I'd do it like this:
Add the RemoveDuplicates function as found here (this is a recursive function that takes a list of strings and returns a list of unique values).
In the relationships graph, add another occurrence of your table and add an Application = Application relationship.
Create a calculated field in the table with the calculation looking something like this:
ValueCount(RemoveDuplicates(List(TABLE2::Program)))
You'll find that each record will contain the number of distinct programs for the given application. Showing a summary for each application should be relatively trivial from here.
I think the best way to do this is to create a separate applications table. So as you've given the data, it would have two records, one for A and one for B.
So, with the addition of an Applications table and your existing table, which I'll call Objects, create a relationship from Applications to Objects (with a table occurrence called ObjectsParent) based on the ApplicationName as the match field. Create a self join relationship between Objects and itself with both Application and Program as the match fields. I'll call one of the "table occurrences" ObjectsParent and the other ObjectsChildren. Make sure that there's a primary key field in Objects that is set to auto-enter a serial number or some other method to ensure uniqueness. I'll call this ID.
So your relationship graph has three table occurrences:
Applications::Applicaiton = ObjectsParent::Application
ObjectsParent::Application = ObjectsChildren::Application, ObjectsParent::Program = ObjectsChildren::Program
Now create a calculation field in Objects, and calculating from the context of ObjectsParent, give it the following formula:
AppCount = Count( ObjectsChildren::ID )
Create a calculation field in Applications and calculating from the context of the table occurrence you used to relate it to ObjectsParent with the following formula:
AppCount = ObjectsParent::AppCount
The count field in Objects will have the same value for every object with the same application, so it doesn't matter which one you get this data from.
If you now view the data in Applications in list view, you can place the Applications::Application and Applications::AppCount fields on the layout and you should get what you've requested.