hi, i'm sort of a newbie (6 months ago, started this program and put it away because i was frustrated).

my first question: can you modify a calculation field? as far as i know, you cannot. if so, here's my dilemma:

i'm in the medical field and want to create a database for my patients. one field (past surgical history) that i created is a calculation field so i could print out the field horizontally (Substitute(PSHx, "

Peter, you can't modify a calculation field, but you can modify the source field, PSHx -- right? If not, why not?

Jerry

hi jerry,

yes, i could modify the source field, PSHx, but that would mean i could have countless of the same surgery in different years (appendectomy - 1999, appendectomy - 2000, appendectomy - 2001, so forth). the source field has numerous types of surgeries that i check off if the patient had them. then i want to modify the patient's data so i know when he/she had the surgeries.

the PSHx is a calulated field so i could list the (checked-off) surgeries next to each other as explained in my first post.

pete

You say PSHx is a calc field, but your calc field definition references PSHx, which is not possible (circular definition). I'm not clear what the name of the source field and the calc field are, so i'll just say PSHx and CalcPSHx.

Am i correct in thinking PSHx is displayed as a checkbox field? If so, with your current structure, your only option is to modify the value list this field references to include "Appendectomy - 1999" , "Appendectomy - 2000" , ...

An alternative is to move to a relational structure where patients are in one file and surgeries in another. See the attached example. (It doesn't allow you to print surgeries horizontally, but it does get you away from that checkbox. Additionally, relational design offers many more benefits which i won't get into just yet, but which you'll discover the more you work in databases.)

J

J

peter.zip