Clearing data question.

[jimi]

I have about 40 files, some of them are related while some not.

Are there any way to clear ALL fields from ALL files? it's a pain to do it one by one...

[LiveOak]

In FM 5, you can shift click to select all the fields in a file and delete them all in one operation. By "shift click" I mean click on the first field, scroll down to the last field, hold down the shift key, and click the last field. Once selected, they can be deleted in one operation. I won't even ask why you want to do this. -bd

[Moon]

I read your request differently than LiveOak did. I am assuming you want to retain the fields but flush the data. If so, simply make a clone of each database. If you do this often, create a script in each that creates a clone, and in a master file, create a script that runs each of the clone scripts.

[jimi]

heh, yeah, Moon got my meaning

but can you give me more details? what's a clone?

[yafreax]

go to file / save a copy as and choose clone. A clone is the exact same database with everything the exact same in it but it has no records. It basically does what your asking for except it creates a completely new file. Note that relationships will struggle and you will more than like have to rebuild the relationships, but that really isn't that difficult.

jeremy

[ March 27, 2001: Message edited by: yafreax ]

[jimi]

Have to rebuild the relationship? But the system on hand is very complicated and I'm not familiar with it's design..

Actually my case is, I've copied the whole system to home and make some modification on it, at the same time people are using the system in office. Now I've finished my job and wanna update the system in office without overwriting the new data in these few days.. I've changed the properties of some fields too.. any suggestion on doing this efficiently?

[LiveOak]

I'm moving this thread to the FM 5 forum. -bd

[BobWeaver]

If the relationships are complex, then the best you can do is go into each file, show all records, and delete all records. Once you make the the modifications that you want to do, make sure you keep a backup of the empty files, so that next time you want to make more mods, you will already have an empty set to work on.