Bobadopolis
No I can't fix it dammit!
- Local time
- Today, 07:51
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2005
- Messages
- 77
Hi All,
I just thought I'd probe the forum and enquire about how people deal with unknown data (esp regarding combos). Up until now I have had a record in the underlying table that feeds the combo with a record for "Not Available". This is ok (sort of) but if the combos are cascading then this results in duplicate records in the child table as each parent must have a "Not Available" associated with it. Clearly this is wrong and bad database design but it was implemented at the time as a quick fix.
So, given that combo boxes cannot be left null in a form (at least in my experience thus far - anyone care to state otherwise and how to do it?) how would I derive "Not Available" without duplicating records as I have been?
Clearly there is also a difference between the data being null and zero. If I had a subform that the user didn't fill in then does that mean there is no data or the user didn't have the data so couldn't fill it in? What is the best way to handle these situations?
This has me really stumped. Any thoughts/suggestions would be very welcome!!
Cheers,
Bobadopolis
I just thought I'd probe the forum and enquire about how people deal with unknown data (esp regarding combos). Up until now I have had a record in the underlying table that feeds the combo with a record for "Not Available". This is ok (sort of) but if the combos are cascading then this results in duplicate records in the child table as each parent must have a "Not Available" associated with it. Clearly this is wrong and bad database design but it was implemented at the time as a quick fix.
So, given that combo boxes cannot be left null in a form (at least in my experience thus far - anyone care to state otherwise and how to do it?) how would I derive "Not Available" without duplicating records as I have been?
Clearly there is also a difference between the data being null and zero. If I had a subform that the user didn't fill in then does that mean there is no data or the user didn't have the data so couldn't fill it in? What is the best way to handle these situations?
This has me really stumped. Any thoughts/suggestions would be very welcome!!
Cheers,
Bobadopolis
