Jürgen Welz
jwelz at hotmail.com
Tue May 25 12:05:56 CDT 2004
I wouldn't suggest that setting text fields to a length of 255 is incorrect except where length is part of a validation rule that you want to enforce at the database table level. However, designing a table with fields whose total allowable size exceeds a size that can be saved and not taking steps to validate and handle an oversize record is bad design. Neglecting to provide the user with a meaningful error message and allowing him to choose which fields to truncate or at least dumping all his text into a memo field with notification that certain fields were arbitrarily truncated (if that is how you handle it) is a failure to properly design an application. Developers need to be aware of limitations and need to handle them, either in an error handler or in this instance, by providing additional one to one tables to allow for the full size of record possible. I have found that users don't report all errors and many developers do not use an error log to track actual issues. Then there are those who blithely throw in an 'On Error Resume Next' and blame failed entries on users. It is not terribly difficult to bind a text display control alternately to memo field or to a text field as required, though it is more problematic in a continuous form. It is usually sufficient to set an unbound text field to display the concatenated contents of two bound fields that are hidden and set their contents in code in the after update of the unbound display/input control. I have found that leaving the first 20 characters in the text field and everything after the first 20 in the memo field, when it is required, allows one to kind of sort and index on the text field even though it may it operates functionally as a memo. Ciao Jürgen Welz Edmonton, Alberta jwelz at hotmail.com _________________________________________________________________ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN Premium http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-ca&page=byoa/prem&xAPID=1994&DI=1034&SU=http://hotmail.com/enca&HL=Market_MSNIS_Taglines