Creating Unique Key Values

[Tenchi]

I have a db: Employment Oppurtinities, that allows a user to create a Job Order and then view eligible candidates (Full-time, Part-time, Both) in a portal. I want to assign a unique identifier (JobOrderCode) to each order that I can in turn assign to candidates meeting that order's criteria. To keep it simple, I want to combine the order date and the record number into a text value. I tried this calculation:

JobOrderCode

NumToText(Month(Order Date)) + NumToText(Day(Order Date)) + NumToText (Year (Order Date)) + (@@)

where (@@) should be the record number (i.e. 5)

thinking that September 4, 2001 (record 5) would become 9420015

However, the calculation does not accept (@@), and [NumToText(Month(Order Date)) + NumToText(Day(Order Date)) + NumToText (Year (Order Date))] returns a 4 digit number (i.e. 9/4/2001 becomes 2014).

I thought that using NumToText(xx(Order Date)) would convert the numeric values to text and prevent their being added together. What have I missed?

[dspires]

To combine text fields, use the ampersand.

[Olive]

Hi,

Here's what I would do :

1- don't use NumToText

2- instead of using the "+" sign, use the "&" sign

Your calc is then :

Month(Order Date) & Day(Order Date) & Year (Order Date) & @@

I think it should work... Does it ?

[Olive]

Hi,

Here's what I would do :

1- don't use NumToText

2- instead of using the "+" sign, use the "&" sign

Your calc is then :

Month(Order Date) & Day(Order Date) & Year (Order Date) & @@

I think it should work... Does it ?

[Afeina]

Try it this way:

Status( CurrentDate ) & Status( CurrentRecordID )

This should give you what you are looking for.

Good Luck,

Martin Wiedemann

[Tenchi]

Thanks Olive; that worked.

[Tenchi]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Afeina Software:

Try it this way:

Status( CurrentDate ) & Status( CurrentRecordID )

This should give you what you are looking for.

Good Luck,

Martin Wiedemann

---

Thanks Martin; Status(CurrentRecordID) creates great index values! I thought I was going to have to find a way to create "000xx" or some such values to append to the date values.

[Kurt Knippel]

I use right("000000" & status ( currentrecordID ), 6 ) & "-" & right("000000" & status ( currenttime ), 6 ) & "-" & right("000000" & status ( currentdate ), 6 )

This gives you a nice unique semi-random meaningless 20 character ID. Virtually impossible to break.