Emacs forms-mode: multiple forms for one file? - emacs

Is there a way in forms-mode, to have multiple different "forms-format-lists" which depend on
the record currently being read into the buffer? For example, say I have 5 different types of
records in my file, all with different fields, but each record type is categorized by say field
number 1. Is it possible to define based on the value of a field number, which form is loaded for
a particular record? i.e. a file with both student and teacher records, and field number one starts
with either "T" or "S". If it begins with "T", load the teacher's form, else the student one.

Probably working with temporary files is closest to existing code.
Create forms-student.el resp. forms-teacher.el matching your data-types.
Than a command for traveling source code, (when (looking-at... ) - which writes a teacher-temp or students-temp data. Afterwards call forms-teacher.el resp. forms-student.el upon them accordingly.
Writing temps might be avoided, which needs some more tweaks, reading from buffers, not file etc.

Related

Access: Adding records with identical data, except for ID

I would like to be upfront. I am by no means an expert or even really all that technologically savy. However, I inherited a training system where the only way to find out if someone was current was to dig through physical file cabinets and try to find the hard copy. I have put together a basic access database to try and improve the situation. It is working okay, but I've run into a problem.
Previously, most training occurred in small enough batches that data entry is not a problem. (No more than 15-20 entries at any one time). However, regulatory changes now mandate the company put everyone through a mandated training course annually. This means all information about the training will be identical, except for the employee ID associated with the record.
Right now I can manually enter this training just like any other, but I have to perform this nearly identical data entry for each of the several hundred employees in the company.
I would like to be able to enter the pertinent details about the training and then have access create an training record for each employee.
The current form asks the user:
Who is the employee that was trained? (The appropriate employee ID # is entered)
Which subject was trained on? (the appropriate selection is made via combo box)
On what date was the training completed? Date picker is used to fill.
What is the file path to the scanned training certificate? (The majority of this field is prepopulated so only the actual file name needs to be typed. For the specific training in question all the employees of the company will be included in the same scanned pdf. Subsequently, this filed will be identical for all employees.)
The fields on the current form are:
txtEmpID – Text box, where employee ID # is entered. Corresponds to
field "empID"
cboTask – Combo box, where the appropriate training
subject is selected. Corresponds to field "reqID"
txtDate – Text box, the date the training was completed.
Corresponds to field "trngDate"
txtFilePath – Text box, file path to the scanned pdf of the physical
training record. Corresponds to field "trngLocat"
I would like to be able to fill in the information for 2-4 but then have access create a record, for each employee in my employees table, where all the data from 2-4 is identical.
Is this possible?
Pertinent Tables:
tblEmployees – keyed on field “empID” which is the employee number.
tblTrngSubjects - Keyed on field "reqID" which is autonumber.
tblTrngRec – keyed on field “recordID” which is autonumber. Relates
to tblEmployees through field “empID”. Relates to tblTrngSubjects
through field "reqID".
tblTrngRec is the table in which the records will be stored.
Other information that may be relevant:
I am using Access 2016.
I once had a copy of Access 2010 the missing manual…but that was in 2010. It has been almost a decade since I did anything more advanced than “docmd.openform”
I greatly appreciate any and all advice. Thanks, in advance.
I admit I haven't worked with access in quite some time, so some of the syntax might be slightly off. You need to know a list of employee IDs that were in that training.
Insert into tblTrngRec(empID,ReqID,txtDate,txtFilePath)
select empID
,25 'You need to enter this manually
,"6/9/2020" 'You need to enter this manually
,"Enter your file path"
from tblEmployees
where EmpID IN (enter a comma delimited list of employee IDs)

How to reset an auto-incremented value when another value changes?

I'm actually working on a PostgreSQL DB structure and I'm having hard time figuring out how to solve a problem.
The DB will be recording data regarding architectural objects.
The main table, "object",have attributes that describe the object with information like type, localization, etc.
One of these attributes is a serial named object_num.
Another table is called "code" which contains a code made of three letters corresponding to the town where the mission is conducted.
Example :
I'm working on an architectural inventory for the city of Paris. The code_name will be PRS and the first entry (aka the first architectural entity : house, bridge, etc) will be associated to object_num 001.
So PRS001 will be a unique identifier referring to this specific architectural entity.
Things going on, I might end up with quite a few entries, for example entry PRS745.
Say this mission isn't finished yet but a new one starts for the city of Bordeaux, where BDX is going to identify the inventory. It would be great that the identifier for the first entry will be BDX001 rather than BDX746 (auto-increment).
Considering this, it will be also nice that, going back to the Paris mission after a few records for the Bordeaux mission (say BDX211), the next value will start back at (PRS)745 rather than (BDX)211.
So, is it possible to reset the value of a serial to 1 when using a new code ?
And is it possible to start back serial increment from the last value of a specific code ?
I guess you can perform this task with constraints and checks, but I'm not really familiar with these and am a bit lost...
Thanks for your help,
Yrkoutsk
You could create separate sequences for each code_name and grab your auo-increment based on the code_name:
CREATE SEQUENCE PRS START 1;
CREATE SEQUENCE BDX START 1;
insert into your_table (object_num, code_name, other_data)
values ( code_name||lpad(nextval(code_name)::char,3,'0')
, code_name, other_data);
You will have to create a new sequence every time you add a new code_name otherwise the db will end up throwing an error when you try accessing the nonexistent sequence.

FileMaker - Getting Data From Another Table with Multiple Field Restrictions

I can't think of a better title, so feel free to make a suggestion once you understand the issue.
I was given a table to work with that I need to call from another table:
Name
Month
Type
Value
For each record in the main table I need to pull one "Value" that corresponds to it. What it is will be determined by all three of the other fields. So for example, if a record in the main table is:
Name:
Google
Date:
3\17\2016
Type:
M
Then I need to pull the value for the record in the other table where the Name is "Google", the month is "3", and the type is "M".
I was able to do this successfully (if slowly) using an ExecuteSQL command in a calculation field, with a ton of nested If statements for the names (I have yet to figure out how to input the record's data directly into the ExecuteSQL statement, it breaks when I try). I would prefer to just grab the data directly. I can't switch over to the other layout because I need to see all of the records at once. I can't do a simple relationship because there isn't a real relationship, it's like there are three foreign keys working in tandem and I only know how to use one to call the data.
Any idea on how to do this more simplistically?
Some ideas I've had but not sure if it will work:
Using a calculation field as a related field to dynamically point to the row by code (concatenate the three relevant fields into a type of code). Not sure if you can connect two tables by a calculation field.
Doing that same thing when calling the data into the table in the first place, adding a code to create a single primary key.
Here are my relationships:
I can't do a simple relationship because there isn't a real
relationship, it's like there are three foreign keys working in tandem
and I only know how to use one to call the data.
Simply define a relationship with three predicates - i.e. three pairs of match fields.

Italicize a specified string inside of a field in FileMaker Pro

I administer a simple Filemaker Pro 12 database for a company. The current project we are working on requires us to italicize proper names. For example, If the database was movie database I would have the following caption:
Wendy,
Peter Pan
At the moment all captions like these are stored in one field, I would normally have two fields to separate the proper name from the character name, but doing so at this point would be very time consuming. I would like to make a script the italicizes the property names in this field, by looping through an array of proper names, and when a match is found it italicizes that name. This would be extremely useful, normally I could do this easily with another language, but Filemakers scripting language is foreign to me. This is simple in other languages using a foreach loop with a string array. Is there a simple solution someone can point me in the direction of.
You could probably loop through the list of proper names (where is it, and in what form?) and set the field to a calculation using:
Substitute ( field ; searchString ; TextStyleAdd ( searchString ; italic ) )
where searchString is the current value of the inner loop. The outer loop is, of course, looping through all found records. Hard to be more specific with so few details.
That said, IMHO it would take no more time and effort to fix the real problem here once and for all, i.e. separate the two facts into two individual fields.
Note also that there is an assumption here that the proper names match only themselves; for example, "Peter Pan, Peter Pan" would become "Peter Pan, Peter Pan" using the above method.

How can I (partially) automate the transfer of a FileMaker database structure and field contents to a second database?

I'm trying to copy some field values to a duplicate database. One record at a time. This is used for history and so I can delete some records in the original database to keep it fast.
I don't want to manually save the values in a variable because there are hundreds of fields. So I want to go to the first field, save the field name and value and then go over to the other database and save the data. Then run a 'Go to Next Field' and loop through all the fields.
This works perfectly, but here is the problem: When a field is a calculation you cannot tab into it and therefore 'Go to Next Field' doesn't work. It skips it.
I though of doing a 'Go to Object' but then I need to name all the objects and I can't find a script to name objects.
Can anyone out there think of a solution?
Thanks!
This is one of those problems where I always found it easier to do an export/import.
Export all the data you want from the one database, and then import it into the other database. All you need to do is:
Manually specify which fields you want to copy
Map the data from the export to the right fields in the new database/table
You can even write a script to do these things for you.
There are several ways to achieve this.
To make a "history file", I have found there are several cases out there, so lets take a look.
CASE ONE
Single file I just want to "keep" a very large file with historical data, because I need to erease all data in my Main file.
In this case, you should create a "clone" table (in the same file ore in other file, is the same). Then change any calculation field to the type of the calculation result (number, text, date, an so on...). Remove any "auto entered value or calculation from any field, like auto number, auto creation date, etc..). You will have a "Plain Table" with no calculations or auto entered data.
Then add a field to control duplicate data. If you have lets say an invoice number (unique) for each record, you can do this to achieve this task. But if you do not have a unique field that identifies the record as unique, then you have to create one...
To create such a field, I recommed to add a new field on the clone table and set as an aunto entered calculation and make a field combination that is unique... somthing like this: invoiceNumber & "-" & lineNumber & "-" " & date.
On the clone table make shure that validation is set up for "always", and no empty values allowed and that this value is unique.
Once you setup the clone table... then you can import your records, making sure that the auto enty option is on. Yo can do it as many times as you like, new records will be added and no duplicates.
If you want, can make a Script to do the move to historical table all the current records before deleting them.
NOTE:
This technique works fine when the data you try to keep do not have changes over time. This means, once the record is created is has no changes.
CASE TWO
A historical table must be created but some fields are updated.
In the beginnig I thougth a historical data, never changes. In some cases I found this is not the case, like the case I want to track historical invoices but at the same time, keep track if they are paid or not...
In this case you may use the same technique above, but instead of importing data... you must update data based on the "unique" fields that identifiy the record.
Hope this technique helps
FileMaker's FieldNames() function, along with GetField() can give you a list of field names and then their values