Problems changing the format of a Table

T

Tolga Uzuner

Thanks to help from some kind people in this newsgroup, I was able to
change the format of a column of data from "yyyy_mm_dd" to "dd/mm/yyyy".

Now, I am trying to change the Data Type of that column from text to
date/time in the Design View.

When I go into Design View, select Date/Time from the drop-down next to
the column I'm trying to effect the change, and try to save, I get an
error dialogue box saying I do not have enough memory/space.

This is a bit weird. The database is 45mb, large, but not enourmous. I
have 1gb ram. I closed the database down, compacted it, and reopened it,
to no avail.

It doesnt make sense that a small format change would have such a
problem. I am sure I must be doing something wrong somewhere else. Any
thoughts ?

Thanks in advance,
Tolga
 
J

Joseph Meehan

Tolga said:
Thanks to help from some kind people in this newsgroup, I was able to
change the format of a column of data from "yyyy_mm_dd" to
"dd/mm/yyyy".
Now, I am trying to change the Data Type of that column from text to
date/time in the Design View.

When I go into Design View, select Date/Time from the drop-down next
to the column I'm trying to effect the change, and try to save, I get
an error dialogue box saying I do not have enough memory/space.

This is a bit weird. The database is 45mb, large, but not enourmous. I
have 1gb ram. I closed the database down, compacted it, and reopened
it, to no avail.

It doesnt make sense that a small format change would have such a
problem. I am sure I must be doing something wrong somewhere else. Any
thoughts ?

Thanks in advance,
Tolga
Click to expand...

I am not sure where are are trying to make all these changes, and I
don't know how much you know about Access, so I will start with a couple of
basics.

Date data, if you want to do any calculations on it is stored in the
table as a date type. This data can be displayed in many different formats,
but the actual data remains the same no matter how it is displayed. You
have different formats in different forms or reports etc.

If you change the data to text, then it is just numbers and words and no
longer dates.

OK There are people other than I who I believe can offer better advice
for the out of memory thing, but I would suggest doing a repair and compact
of the database. Look under the tools menu.
 
V

Van T. Dinh

AFAIK, Access needs to create a new temporary Field of DateTime data type
then converts the data in the existing Field to DateTime value, wite this to
the new Field. After completing the data conversion, Access deletes the old
Field and rename the new Field to the old name.

In my experience, this process seems to use a lot more memory and
unreliable, especially of the Table has a lot of Records. It is much more
efficient to use a Make-Table Query to create a new Table with the new
DateTime Field and other existing Field to a new Table name. Afterwards,
the existing Table can be deleted and the new Table renamed to the old name.
 
R

Ruth Allen

Dear Tolga Uzune,

Microsoft Office has a disturbing way of giving you ominous, seamingly
global/system error messages that may really be just an error for that
particular item. Try troubleshooting smaller, with that particular field
only. Check out the specs of that field and answer these questions:

1. Is the field large enough for the data to be stored in it?
2. Do I have restrictions on the amount of characters or data memory size
in that field?
3. Do I have any restrictions for that field that would effect space or
memory?

Let me know if you are still having a problem.


/RA
 
T

Tony Toews

Tolga Uzuner said:
Thanks to help from some kind people in this newsgroup, I was able to
change the format of a column of data from "yyyy_mm_dd" to "dd/mm/yyyy".
Click to expand...

FWIW I wouldn't do that. Let the user choose what data format they
are comfortable in. And if in a work environment, IMNSHO, all
administrators should force a four digit year anyhow.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
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