Joseph,
Thanks for the initial advice. Here are the additional details: I built an
Access Database. There are two columns that I want to use to determine the
length of employment service that an employee would have had at the end of
his or her period of employment. The first two columns are titled: HireDate
and the second Terminationdate. My third column's name is LengthofService.
In the LengthofService column, I wish to have the employee's service (in
years and months) computed whenever I add input a new set of data including
hire and termination dates. How do I actually write the formula to have this
done for the existing records and all future records. Grateful for your kind
assistance.
The length of service SHOULD NOT EXIST in your table.
Storing derived data such as this in your table accomplishes
three things: it wastes disk space; it wastes time (almost
any calculation will be MUCH faster than a disk fetch); and
most importantly, it risks data corruption. If one of the
underlying fields is subsequently edited, you will have data
in your table WHICH IS WRONG, and no automatic way to detect
that fact.
Just redo the calculation whenever you need it, either as a
calculated field in a Query or just as you're now doing it -
in the control source of a Form or a Report textbox.
John W. Vinson[MVP]
