Populate texbox with contactenation of dropdown combo boxes

[mikehorse]

Hi All.



This is my very first post to this forum... hope first impressions not too negatively affected

I'm very new to access2010 and databases. I'm trying to build a database that will help manage / track tests.

I have created my tables & relationships and a form called testcases, this is used to assign a "test" to a "testcycle" & "project" (data for these are stored in the test, testcycle & project tables respectively). So, on the form are combo boxes where I select the test, test cycle & project and a text box for a testcase name. My problem is; I would like the name to be a concatenation of these selected fields. however when I use this function in the "control source" of the textbox

=[Forms]![frmTESTCASE]![txtTEST_ID] & "-" & [Forms]![frmTESTCASE]![txtTESTCYCLE_ID] & "-" & [Forms]![frmTESTCASE]![txtTEST_PROJECT_ID].
The form displays the foreign key values e.g. 1-2-3 and not the required names.

Can anyone suggest how to resolve this. ? Thanks in advance.

[pbaldy]

If those are combos with the text in another column, use the Column property:

[Forms]![frmTESTCASE]![txtTEST_ID].Column(1)

The column property is zero based, so 1 is the second column of the row source.

[Bob Fitz]

Try something like:
[Forms]![frmTESTCASE]![txtTEST_ID].Column(1).......

[mikehorse]

Thanks Bob, that resolved the problem.

However, for some reason the text in the testcase name, even though correctly displayed on the form is not being updated to the corresponding field in the table ?

[June7]

Are you wanting to save the concatenated value? Why? Saving calculated data is usually a bad idea. Calculate the value when needed.

Requires code in some event to save calculated data.

[pbaldy]

http://allenbrowne.com/casu-14.html