Need Help With combining information from 3 fields into a 4th field.

[Baylah]

I have 3 fields that I would like to pull information from that result in information populating a 4th field. I was wondering if someone could help me make this happen.

3 current fields:

Degin_Number: Serial number, unique, auto-created on new record generation.

Design Name: User Generated Text.

File type: Drop Down List.

I would like to combine the 3 fields into 1 field called "Full_design_Number" that takes the design number and combines it with the first 3 letters of the design name and the entry from the file type list.

Example:

Design Number = 123456

Design Name = Mission Beach

File type = emb

Full_Design_Number = 123456misemb

Is it possible to make this happen? And if so can anyone point me in the right direction?

thank you very much in advance for any help you can provide.

Steve

[Lee Smith]

How about:

Full_Design_Number (Calculation, Text Result) =

Design Number & Design Name & File type

Lee

[LaRetta]

Hi Steve,

Lee had it but didn't chop to 3 characters. Here you go:

Design Number & Left ( Design Name ; 3 ) & Left ( File Type ; 3 )

I hope you aren't using this as a uniqueID to hold your structures together. If so, I advise against it.

In fact, viewing these codes in lists will look quite funny if some of the characters are lower and some upper. I think I'd wrap it as:

Design Number & Upper ( Left ( Design Name ; 3 ) & Left ( File Type ; 3 ) )

Edited July 9, 2006 by Guest
Added Upper

[Baylah]

Lee, (and LaRetta)

I had already done what you suggested before I posted and it worked in the "primary table", but when I added the "full_design_number" field to a portal in a related table then all that would display in the portal row (unless I clicked on a row in the portal) was the design number, without the design name and file type.

Am I doing something fundamentally wrong do you think? I thought it had something to do with the & operators.

LaRetta, these results are deffinately not to be used as unique identifiers. I understand the concerns.

Thanks for your advice on how to chop the charecters. I will try this out first thing in the morning when I am back in my office.

Steve