Best practise - Format at table or form level

[danwand]

Hi all,
Just a general design question, in your opinion what is the best way to specify format and input mask conditions on fields?
Should they be specified in table design, in a textbox on a form or in both?
Does it make any difference to performance?

Any opiniions appreciated.

Dan

 

[ZmrAbdulla]

Normally I do on form level and a few in the table level, there I have more control over it

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Zameer Abdulla
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[alvechurchdata]

Normally I do on form level and a few in the table level, there I have more control over it

Same here. My pet hate is fields defined in the table as lookup types. They can cause havoc on reports.

Geoff Franklin

http://www.alvechurchdata.co.uk

 

[MajP]

Personally, I do everything at the form level because I rarely enter any information in datasheets. Nothing is more confusing than trying to show someone that in field lastNameID although you see "Smith" what really is in there is the value "45". It can get really confusing for example when you are trying to query on an SSN 123-45-6789 and you do not realize that you did not store the "-" in the SSN field but that is what you see.

 

[danwand]

Thanks all,

Well i'm not actually using any datasheets either, so i take it that where the format is placed is irrelevant in terms of performance but rather just a matter or convenience.