design issue follow-up (1 Viewer)

[BadKitty]

thanx for the advice...that does make more sense. my only other issue is adding the letter (m for meter permit, h for hydrant, etc.) to the permit # if they are all going to be in one table. btw, sorry for the duplicate postings...just under a bit of stress @ work. i'll make a note of it.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

If the numbers are to be consecutive (or just unique), you do best in my opinion to not put the permit letter in the same field with the permit number. Instead, have two fields that are separate in the DB but always displayed together on forms and reports.

Like

tblPermits
...
PmtNo, PK, possibly autonumber (if they don't have to be consecutive, just unique)
PmtCode, text, length 1, holds H or M or whatever other letter you use.
...

Any time you need to display these two items together, you can use something similar to...

[tblPermits]![PmtCode] & Format( [tblPermits]![PmtNo], "######" )

OR look up FORMAT function, User-defined numeric formats, to find how to put leading zeros in the format if that is what you wanted.

 

[BadKitty]

thanx!

thanx for your help...appreciate the quick response