Changing Value Without Affecting Mofication Data

[Ralph Schwegler]

Hello

I'm looking for a way to change values in records, for instance country should be ISO code (Austria is AT not A), but I want to keep the modified date (aso) as they were before the update.

Is there a way to accomplish this?

Cheers

[Søren Dyhr]

Hello

I'm looking for a way to change values in records, for instance country should be ISO code (Austria is AT not A), but I want to keep the modified date (aso) as they were before the update.

Is there a way to accomplish this?

Cheers

An initial stab would suggest you study the frontmost template here:

http://www.kevinfrank.com/demo-files.html

"Selective Time Stamp"

--sd

[comment]

If this is a one-time thing, you could open Manage Database, disable the auto-enter, make your corrections, then restore the auto-enter.

[Ralph Schwegler]

If this is a one-time thing, you could open Manage Database, disable the auto-enter, make your corrections, then restore the auto-enter.

great idea! i will try to automate this once i get some time.

another idea i had is pick the time / date / name of modification, set the system to those values, do the mods, restore real values - and so on!

cheers

[comment]

i will try to automate this once i get some time.

I don't think it can be automated - that's why I said "If this is a one-time thing".

[Ralph Schwegler]

I don't think it can be automated - that's why I said "If this is a one-time thing".

you definitely are right. i meant "semi-automate": disable the 3 field from being updated automatically, let a script run doing the things automatically, reenable the automatic update. so a detailed description and nice script would be nice.

this has to be done on a few tables, like 20 or so. worth the time to script!

cheers

[Dan_NYHTC]

you definitely are right. i meant "semi-automate": disable the 3 field from being updated automatically, let a script run doing the things automatically, reenable the automatic update. so a detailed description and nice script would be nice.

You could automate this by running an export as FileMaker that includes the field(s) to be changed as well as the PRIMARY KEY, modifying the field(s) in the exported file, then do a matching import (using the primary key) and NOT allowing Auto-Enter fields to update (the dialog following the import-matching dialog). That will change only the field(s) you modified, without allowing auto-enter values like Modification Date to change.

One note of caution: If any of the imported fields are used as the source-side of a lookup, the lookup values will re-lookup. In your example, if you had any fields that do a lookup based on the Country Code, then those fields will re-lookup based on the (now correct) country code, even though you did not enable auto-enter. This may or may not be what you want to have happen, but you need to be aware.