Change of field name formats

[Ilene]

A few weeks ago, I opened a database file only to discover that the field name format for the .apr was fine, but somehow the field name format for the database looked like DOS format. Spaces were now underscored and the name was cut off. I had no idea how this happened and it was time consuming to correct the situation. We do have backups.

Well, today the same thing has happened to another database. Can anyone tell me why this is occurring? Any quick ways to correct it? I made a change to a calculated field, but not in the affected database.

Your help would be most appreciated.

 

[paulbent]

The dbf file contains field names that conform to DBase rules:

Max length ten chars
All uppercase
Must start with a letter or an underscore
Can only contain letters, numbers and the underscore char.

Approach's support for long field names is implemented in the (proprietory) index file (.adx) where the long field names are mapped to those in the dBase file.

If an adx file is deleted (Approach rebuilds a new one automatically) or damaged (a replacement .OYZ file is present) then field names revert to those stored in the dBase file and the field mapping dialog appears when the apr is opened.

My strong recommendation is to use the dBase rules (apart from all uppercase) when creating fields in Approach. Then if something happens to the adx there are no mapping problems.

If someone has been deleting adx files then stop them! If you have a .OYZ file you must delete it and the .adx file of the same name, open the dbf and let Approach build a new adx.

If .OYZ files are appearing regularly you must identify the cause. Some common ones are:

- illegal many-to-many relationship between two joined tables
- large number of records in a table have a null foreign key
- hardware: eg faulty network card, PC crashed when updating a record, etc etc.

Paul Bent
Northwind IT Systems

http://www.northwindit.co.uk