Kali, My guess here is that you are running into a feature of the system that helps you 99.999% (hey, I have to work 5 9s in somewhere sometime because we are talking about IT most of the time!) but in that rare corner case can provide something confusing. Most of the time, the feature eliminates confusion and odd results.
The feature: When using our clients (windows or web) we trim leading and trailing spaces from all character fields that you type in. Why? Because how often did you really mean "Joe " vs. really meaning "Joe" and you cannot see that extra space on the screen? The answer is almost never if not never. Customers were running into comparison problems and consistency issues with the extra space occasionally occurring and getting into the data and then even when they looked they could not see the space on the screen so it was extra confusing. Since adding this (back in the 2 or 3 release days), this problem has been eliminated. But, if you load data directly from another source or from a program or in some other way, we are not involved on the client so if the data has those leading or trailing spaces, they remain in the data. Then, if you try and search through our interface, we trim them so you don't get a match. I suspect this is what is occurring for you. Using different ways to search you do or don't find things depending on whether our client is involved. For example, if the operation in question for that filter came in from an API program, it would work if you had the extra space in the field passed in but it would not if the operation came from one of our clients as we would have trimmed the space. The key is that the extra space in front in the data is confusing and is not useful (well, almost always) so we have endeavoured to keep it out and help protect your data. As I noted at the beginning, 99.999% of the time it is the right answer and it does what you want it to do and it helps you keep your system clean and consistent. But, when that .001% case comes along, there is a bit of a surprise. We feel that the .001% surprise is better than a 99.999% surprise if we didn't help. Now, to fix it, you can just clean the leading space in this record. If there is a data source you are loading from that regularly has extra spaces, then add an LTRIM() or RTRIM() call in a filter to clean the data up as it is being loaded so that the extra spaces are removed. If it is critical that the field have a leading space in it for some reason.... Then, you have to figure out use patterns to cover the fact that we will have trimmed that leading space coming from the clients. I hope this helps with telling you what is happening and gives you a hint to resolve your situation. Doug Mueller ________________________________ From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Kali Obsum Sent: Friday, July 30, 2010 5:20 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Problem with Leading Space on Field values? ** Hi All, In Remedy 6.3, is there a problem in comparing values if the field value has a leading space? Scenario: Value of Field1 is " testvalue" Value of Field2 (from another form) is also " testvalue" Filter: Set field if: $Field 1$ = 'Field2' If no requests match: Set value to NULL Field: tmpfield = $Entry-id$ After the filter runs, value of tmpfield = NULL, meaning it didn't find a request that matches the criteria. But if you do a manual search on the form with the same criteria ($Field 1$ = 'Field2'), or even on the DB level, it does return a record. Regards, Kali NOTICE The information contained in this email is confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not disclose or use the information in this email in any way. If you received it in error, please tell us immediately by return email and delete the document. We do not guarantee the integrity of any e-mails or attached files and are not responsible for any changes made to them by any other person. _attend WWRUG10 www.wwrug.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"_ _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org attend wwrug10 www.wwrug.com ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"
