What kind of function i have to use

[evilforces]

Hi everybodies, i'm new here and i going to ask for an help from you.

I would like to personalize a software for my newspaper stand but i'm still at the beginning of the work and i have just a problem.

I have a table where i'm going to insert all the details of a magazine and it is composed by these fields:

ID

BARCODE

TITLE

DISTRIBUTOR

ETC.

I would like to scan each magazine with a barcode scanner in the field BARCODE. As you can know the barcode character lenght is 18 but only the first 13 chars are proper of the magazine.

If i scan it with the scanner i will have 18 characters in the barcode field but i want to restrict them to only the first 13.

How can i do it ?

THANKS in advance for your help

[bcooney]

Welcome to the forum!

I don't really understand the fact that a barcode is 18 characters, but you only want to store the first 13. Not one to ever "throw out" data, how about storing all 18 and creating a second field that contains only the first 13? Use Left ( barcode; 13).

However, the barcode is just another identifier, correct? You will have a unique ID for each Title, which is what will be used in your relationships. Barcoding will simply help you find the record, right?

At this stage, you might benefit by posting a simple diagram of the table structure you're planning and ask for input. For instance, I see the need for a Distributor table ( ID and Name), and the Magazine table will contain the _kF_DistID (foreign distributor ID).

What is your goal, an inventory?