Derek said:I am creating a database where I would like a user to enter a full or
incomplete date, depending on what information they have available. For
example, 05/13/2005, or 05/2005 or just 2005. I would appreciate any
formatting suggestions.
Thanks,
Van T. Dinh said:If the Field is a date (/time) field, it must be a specific date.
Also, format only affect how the data is display, not how the data in
entered.
Derek said:Thanks for taking the time to respond to my question.
I was hoping to to create a solution to my problem in a dae/time field,
but
I am gathering from your response that I won't be able to. In that case,
is
there a way to enter dates differently depending on the data that is
available?
Maybe my question will be clearer if I give the context in which this
database will be used. I work in a medical facility and have to do a
quality
assurance project. Some of the information I collect for a specific
subject
may have complete information (dd/mm/yyyy), but others may have (mm/yyyy)
and
still others only (yyyy). Unfortunately I do not have any control over
the
information that is given to me.
My goal would be to enter whatever information I have without getting an
error message saying that I am not using the correct format AND in the
end,
be able to sort this field chronologically.
Whew. Thanks (against) in advance.
Derek said:I am creating a database where I would like a user to enter a full or
incomplete date, depending on what information they have available. For
example, 05/13/2005, or 05/2005 or just 2005. I would appreciate any
formatting suggestions.
Thanks,
Van T. Dinh said:If the Field is a date (/time) field, it must be a specific date.
Also, format only affect how the data is display, not how the data in
entered.
Derek said:Thanks for taking the time to respond to my question.
I was hoping to to create a solution to my problem in a dae/time field,
but
I am gathering from your response that I won't be able to. In that case,
is
there a way to enter dates differently depending on the data that is
available?
Maybe my question will be clearer if I give the context in which this
database will be used. I work in a medical facility and have to do a
quality
assurance project. Some of the information I collect for a specific
subject
may have complete information (dd/mm/yyyy), but others may have (mm/yyyy)
and
still others only (yyyy). Unfortunately I do not have any control over
the
information that is given to me.
My goal would be to enter whatever information I have without getting an
error message saying that I am not using the correct format AND in the
end,
be able to sort this field chronologically.
Whew. Thanks (against) in advance.
Van T. Dinh said:I generally try to avoid this situation but to be flexible, my prefer
option
is to use 3 Fields, one for day of of the month, one for month and one for
year. At least this way, it is easier to manipulate the values to get the
"value" of what the user enters.
There are other alternatives such as storing at Text what the user enters
(harder to manipulate later).