Deleting Column Contents

[Dave Titan]

Looks like the thread never went through!

Question was how to delete the contents of a column in a table. Nothing happens when delete is pressed and the contents are highlighted. I need to keep some some columns of information but delete others. And cannot allow records to be deleted.

I know there must be an easy answer, but it's not in my head!

 

[FoFa]

If you want to remove all the information in a column in a table:
UPDATE MyTable
SET MyCol = NULL

Will NULL the column in ALL THE ROWS
If it is numeric you can set it to 0 (zero) instead,
if NULLs are not allowed, you can set it to an empty string ("") given it is a string or memo. You can limit the rows effected by using the where clause of the query.

Is this what you are looking for?

 

[Dave Titan]

I believe it is thank you. However I a little lost as to where I'm to imput what you suggested?

 

[dcx693]

FoFa's suggestion is to create an update query. Update queries change values en masse. Read up in the Access help about them.

If you're looking for a really quick way to delete the contents of an entire column, and it's not involved in any relationships, you might want to consider deleting the column then recreating it.

 

[Dave Titan]

Thanks I will create the query first.

Another option I discovered was to cut the fields and then paste them back in again. This way the data is deleted and the field is still saved in masse.