Marc,
Razzak has several examples for FORMS and REPORTS that use format values to
deal with your problem.
An additional alternative to consider is to store the Area Code in one field
and the rest of the number in another.
Jim Bentley
American Celiac Society
Marc <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Hi Alastair
I was trying to save work and save the numbers as 9184451555
then in some reports put in ( ) and in others 918 335 1555.
I didn't want to have to strip out the ( ) for the report that I
couldn't have ( ).
That has come back and bit me, so now I am thinking about
storing the numbers 918 335 1555.
I never made the users enter the area code if they didn't want to
in fact I never did in my area if it was the same as mine. This
"flexibility" will just cause another problem down the road.
thanks for the thoughts
Marc
----- Original Message -----
From: Alastair Burr
To: RBASE-L Mailing List
Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 1:07 PM
Subject: [RBASE-L] - Re: Can you insert a blank space in text?
Marc, you've had some good suggestions for formatting your telephone
numbers but, maybe, you need to take a further step back and consider how
you want to store them:
Because they're telephone _numbers_ it is natural to think of then as
numbers rather than as text in the first place.
Here, in the UK, there seems to be a few attempts to use characters in
some numbers - I would hardly call it a trend yet. Should that sort of thing
catch on you may find storing text is easier.
Then again, the numbers seem to get longer as the years go by and numbers
get used up. If they just stick a zero in front of all current ones then you
have a problem if you're not storing as text. If, as they did with London
number a few years back, they change some codes you may not be able to
easily update your data...
One way to cope might be to store your numbers as text with a comma
between area code and number. You might even want to include an
international code as well separated by another comma. When you use your data
you can then use SRPL to replace the comma(s) with a space or SSUB to extract
the components (assuming your delimiter character is a comma). You could even
store the components in reverse order and extract them in reverse order so
that you don't store something like: ,123,4567 but have: 4567,123 or
4567,123,44 instead. All it takes is a slightly longer variable definition or
two on your forms and reports. You might also want to verify area codes which
then becomes easy(ier).
Of course, if you've only got a small number of telephone numbers you've
already got your solution and you can just hit the delete button on this.
Good luck,
Regards,
Alastair.
----- Original Message -----
From: Marc
To: RBASE-L Mailing List
Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 4:40 PM
Subject: [RBASE-L] - Can you insert a blank space in text?
Hi
I store my phone numbers like
9183351555
9183352225
I am thinking about using a format in forms like this
918 335 1555
But If I change the format to that the phone numbers do not
display correctly, I guess because they are stored 9183351555
So, how do you update the phone numbers to add the proper spaces?
And if some of the numbers are 3352244 without the 918 would that
mess things up?
Thanks
Marc
Jim Bentley
American Celiac Society
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
tel: 1-504-737-3293
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