writing a concatination field

[Jen0dorf]

Hi

I Have two fields WitnessesBride and witnessesGroom which I watn to combine.

I know from the helpfile I can use in a table definitions

Witnesses: [WitnessesBride] &" " [WitnessesGroom]

But I'm assuming this makes the field witnesses a "calculated" field?

Is there any advantage or reason to convert this into a concrete value - if you follow? rather than use the calculation all the time?

thanks

Ian

[John_G]

It does make it a calculated field, but I suggest you not use it. Instead, just use the concatenation when you need it, i.e. a form, report or query. It's better practice and gives you more flexibility.

[Jen0dorf]

Hi

thanks for the advice

Ian

[JoeM]

Actually, you do NOT want to store it as a calculated field. Doing so can violate the Rules of Normalization and undermine the integrity of your database (i.e. what if you changed one of the underlying values down the road, then your "calculation" does not match the data elements).

A good rule of thumb is the following: Never store anything that can be calculated without too much trouble!

As John mentioned, the calculations can be done "on-the-fly" in your queries, reports, forms, etc.
I do most of mine in queries. And you can use queries for pretty much anything that you use tables for (exports, data sources for report & forms, etc.)

[mrmmickle1]

OI wouldn't make a calculated table field. You can easily concatenate those fields in a query.

i.e.
[WitnessBride] & [WitnessGroom] AS Expr1

[Jen0dorf]

Thanks one and all

Ian