[AccessD] Form Lifetime Control Limit (Was: Advice on A2010....)

Kenneth Ismert kismert at gmail.com
Mon Dec 12 15:26:50 CST 2011


>
> William Benson:
> I would love to hear MS's defense of this "lifetime" limitation....
>

To answer the first part of your question, it all has to do with default
control names.

When you insert a control in a form, it is given a default name, like
text10 or label121. The counter that names the controls is the Lifetime
Control Limit counter. Once it hits 754, it gives up.

The reason for that is name collisions. You can't just reset the counter,
especially when lots of controls on the form have default names. In this
scenario, Access might try to name a new control 'text203', and that name
would already exist. In pathological cases, all possible new names for a
control could already exist, and then you're stuck.

That is why, in my earlier instructions, I required that you rename all
controls with default number-suffixed names before resetting the counter.

It was to avoid name collisions.

So, that is the explanation for the Lifetime Control Limit. Is it stupid?
Yes. Is it lazy? Yes. But it was Microsoft's 'quick and dirty' solution for
what they surely imagined was going to be a rare event.

-Ken



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