Gary Kjos
garykjos at hotmail.com
Tue May 13 21:32:34 CDT 2003
Cool shortcut to save an update query to initialize a new field. I'll have to try that sometime. Gary Kjos garykjos at hotmail.com >From: Drew Wutka <DWUTKA at marlow.com> >Reply-To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com >To: "'AccessD at databaseadvisors.com'" <AccessD at databaseadvisors.com> >Subject: [AccessD] Very interesting quirk in table design... >Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 19:42:55 -0500 > >I just noticed something tonight. I had to go into an existing table and >add a few fields. One field was numeric, then I was going to add two >Yes/No >fields. I did this. The numeric field was blank/null for all existing >records. However, I wanted a Yes/No/Not Answered for the Yes/No fields, so >I dropped one of them, and changed the other one to a byte number (1-yes, >2-no, 4-Yes, 8-No) which will let me know the answer for both and whether >they were answered at all. When I looked back at the datasheet view, the >byte field (which was a yes/no) was all 0's, and the number field was still >all blank. > >So I hypothesized that by setting a Yes/No field, you had either 0 or -1 >(maybe 1, I don't remember), but since a Yes/No field only has two possible >values, there was nothing for null, so each field is automatically >populated >with 0 or -1. By switching that field to a number field, it tried to >'convert' the data in those fields, which it did successfully to 0. > >So to prove this, I went into design for that table, changed my 'null >filled' number field to Yes/No, hit save, changed it back to number, and >hit >save again. Whalla, went into datasheet view, and no I had all zero's in >my >number field. > >Pretty interesting eh? (Or do I just need some sleep?) > >Drew >_______________________________________________ >AccessD mailing list >AccessD at databaseadvisors.com >http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd >Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com _________________________________________________________________ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963