Hey -  -- ---

Anybody else working this AM?

I am working on some data conversion, and I'm looking to see if  
anyone has a more clever technique than mine for resolving  
differences among duplicate records. What I mean is this: I have a  
lot of records where obviously-same people (for example) have  
different values populated. So I have 2, 3, 4, 5 records variously  
populated:

person          phone         fax             email            (many  
more fields..)
Sally Jones    222-333-4444   222-333-4445
Sally Jones                   222-333-4445
Sally Jones    222-333-4444                   [email protected]

Of course, I want them all to end up:
Sally Jones    222-333-4444   222-333-4445   [email protected]


My technique essentially has always been:
  - scan the "like" ones
  - scatter the first one
  - apply a bunch of if !empty() statements to populate the variables
  - use SQL or "replaces" to repopulate them with the populated values.

This is one of those situations where I keep thinking "there *has* to  
be a more clever way to do this." The problem is that I use the time- 
tested (or shop-worn) technique of flattening out the data, so there  
are a *lot* of fields that could be variously populated and some not  
to be evaluated like this, where the data in multiple rows are  
supposed to be different.

Anybody do it differently?

I am actually running the conversion in VFP9, so On-Topic!

Ken

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