Newbie Autonumber question

J

Joskin

Hello Gurus,

I have inherited a database (A2003) where one table issues a Certificate
Number to a customer, from whatever is in an Autonumber field.

I have read that a user / punter should never see the contents of an
Autonumber field (although I'm not bright enough to work out why).

If this is true, then I need a new field to issue the Certificate Numbers.
The previously issued Certificate Numbers will need to remain valid (can I
just copy & paste to a new Long Integer field?), and then the new field will
need to be incremented for each new record (just like Autonumber did).

Is there a recommended way of doing this, or an I wasting my on something I
have mis-understood.

TIA
Joskin
 
L

Lynn Trapp

There is really nothing "inherently" wrong with end users viewing an
Autonumber field, but they usually have a lot of assumptions about them that
cause issues. For one, Autonumber fields are never guaranteed to be
sequential. If you need a sequential number then it won't work for you,
whether your users can see it or not. For another, they are absolutely
meaningless numbers that often mask the fact that there are duplicate
records in your table.
 
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