From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Well, I have numerous categories such as Hard Drive, MOtherboard, etc. So
> on the first page, they choose the category they want to edit. If they
> choose motherboard, it will show them maybe 10 motherboards. Every part of
> the database is in an input field so they can go through and edit every
> price. In this industry as you know, prices are changing constantly. It
> would be so tedious to edit these prices one by one. Thats why I want to
> do it this way. If I can get a list of 20 CPU's and edit all the prices
> and click submit, it would really speed up this arduous task.
>
>
You don't need to do data updates with a form. Forms that pull up a whole
record and are designed to allow editing of any/all fields are fine when
the focus of what you are doing needs a whole record display. However,
when updating things like price lists I have found that batch processing
a change list is easier. Sometimes the changes come prepared in a readable
file format so the processing is simple (the ideal situation).
What you might consider doing is;
1. produce the changes list - lots of different ways, but make sure each
line comprises a key field that uniquely identifies the item that is being
updated
2. process the change list as a batch - i.e. read a text file line by line,
read a delimited list, query a changes db - whatever format you use in 1.
You can update only the fields referenced in the line.
While in your particular situation there may be good reasons to do whole
record updates, the batch update method has a few virtues:
a. it's quicker
b. depending on method used to produce the changes list you can retain
a statistically useful history
c. data entry is simpler in that you don't have to navigate a form and
the underlying code should be a lot simpler and easier to maintain
d. if your source of new prices is machine readable your effort is
much more efficient
e. you don't have to do a whole record update - just the fields that
actually have changed
Hope this stimulates your thinking.
Pan
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