Newbee simple Q on record limit

M

MOnty

In my table (table1), I have 247 fields. When I try to add more fields, I
get the error code informing me of a limit threshold of 255!
I have not met the threshold, close but not quite. Even so, if I am at 255
and want to work around this, are there any tips?
Thank you very much.
Mark Vorous
 
L

Lynn Trapp

Mark,
If you are using that many fields, it is a pretty good indication that your
table is not even near being normalized. I have never needed to create a
table with more than 60 fields. If you use good normalization practices you
probably won't either. Could you describe your table design some more?
 
F

Fredg

Mark,
Lynn is probably correct. I too doubt that your database is normalized.

Even so, if you add a field, then delete it, it is still counted towards the
maximum allowed.

I believe I've read somewhere that you can create a new blank database and
import all the exiting tables, forms, reports, etc. into it. You will then
have a fresh count.

But 200+ fields is way too many.
 
M

MOnty

Yes, I have a request for medical information for patients on a one time
basis.
I know it is a lot more fields than I have ever done but...
What is normalization? I guess just braking up the whole pile into logical
groups?
Anyway, any help would be great.
Thanks, Mark
 
L

Lynn Trapp

Normalization is the process of making your data as unique as possible and
insuring it's integrity as much as can be done. In the kind of application
you are describing, you may have a large number of repeating fields. I would
assume that a medical information application might need to store the names
of various medications that a patient was taking. Now, in a non normal table
you might have a series of repeating fields such as: Medication1,
Medication2, Medication3, Medication4, etc. And, if you are constantly
adding fields that suggests that you may have encountered situations where
you had to keep adding new repititions of the field. It would be much better
to have a Patients table and a Medications table that are joined together on
a PatientID field. You would have one record for each unique PatientID in
the Patients, but one OR many records for each Patient ID in the Medications
table.

Make sense?

--
Lynn Trapp
MS Access MVP
www.ltcomputerdesigns.com
Access Security: www.ltcomputerdesigns.com/Security.htm
 

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