I've inherited some databases where text fields have all sorts of different formatting in them that need regularizing, so I was happy to discover the strategy of using the TextFormatRemove(Self) as an auto-entry option, so that when I build a database I can control the formatting of various fields that wind up getting put ontto reports etc.

I'm tempted to just make this a standard practice for all my text fields -- would anyone anticipate any downside to this practice? Of course, it prevents the user from doing something he or she might like to do, but aside from that -- any consequences I'm not foreseeing?

wickerman

Just about all fields in my databases have the auto-enter calculation Trim4( TextFormatRemove( fieldname ) ) to clean up data entry. This is on all fields like names, addresses etc, but NOT fields that may need to have formatted text entered (which are very few, like letter text fields).

Particularly with names and addresses, it solves a lot of formatting problems like surnames not appearing because there is a return after the first name.

Fields that have pop-up menus or radio buttons have a calculation that removes all except the rightmost (last) value. Fields that cannot be empty enter a default value.

Just about all fields in my databases have the auto-enter calculation Trim4( TextFormatRemove( fieldname ) ) to clean up data entry . . . .

Is the '4' in that cal a typo -- if not, what does it do? My understanding is that Trim(Text) removes leading and trailing space characters . . . is the '4' part something special?

Albert

Trim4 is the name of a Custom Function Here

Sorry Albert, my bad. What Lee said.

I use Trim4() so often now that I've built it into my development template. I forget it's a custom function.