Adding a special character to the end of a field

[coy886]

Hello Everyone,

 

I have a field that gives an image height, and an image width. What I am looking for is a way to type in a number and have the field automatically add a " to the end of the number. I believe this is done with a calculation field, but not positive.

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Matthew F]

Yes, you could define a calculation:   Height_inches:   Height & """

 

The backslash () allows you to escape the " in your calculation, thus adding a " in the text instead of acting as the end-of-text delimiter.

[LaRetta]

A consideration ...

 

If you create a calculation then that is fine but if you plan to do what you say which is "type in a number and have the field automatically add a " to the end of the number" meaning you want to use Auto-Enter (replace) calculation then it can be problem.  Using Height & """ can produce double quotes at the end so if you wish to use it as auto-enter then you might consider instead using:  

Let ( n = GetAsNumber ( Self ) ; n & """)

This will protect from getting double quotes if the field is changed.  But further, might we be able to skip all of this?  Do you really NEED a calculation field even?  If the inches are for display only then you can use merge field such as:  <<Height>>".  You can also use merge variable with conditional format for displaying more complex calculations.  Duplicating a field value (plus adding another calculation to your definitions) carries a cost whereas layout-level solutions are quite thrifty.

 

Just some ideas.

[LaRetta]

Oh geez ... even better of course ... GetAsNumber ( Self ) & """    

[comment]

Why not simply format the field to display the " as a trailing currency symbol?

[LaRetta]

Oh!  Much better!

 

I also wanted to mention that, although FM allows text characters within a number field (where Height and Width should be number), it usually is best to keep number fields pure.