Field update on a form

> leath@atlas.cs.upei.ca (Stephen Leath) writes:
> In article <870@niktow.canisius.edu> bagley@niktow.canisius.edu (Mary Bagley)
> writes:
>>is there any way to compare all the fields on an abf form at the same time
>>rather than as separate fields? i've loaded all
>>the initial fields into an initialized field
>>called pay001afrm = type of form pay001a.  now
>>i want to compare that field (which holds all the forms
>>fields) to what is currently in the fields to see if
>>there were any changes. any suggestions?
>
> If you only wish to know if any field has changed, then use INQUIRE_FORMS
> FORM (fieldname=CHANGE) statement. If any field on the form has changed it
> will return a value of 1.
>
> Steve Leath : leath@upei.ca

Unfortunately, if a user changes the value in a field and then changes
it right back to what it was, FRS still thinks the value has changed,
and marks the whole form as being changed.  In our applications, this
can generate unnecessary database updates.

Each record in our database has a time stamp column that shows when the
record was last updated.  If we do unnecessary database updates, then
the time stamp is wrong.  For this reason, we need to use elaborate
mechanisms to remember the original value of each field on the form, and
test the latest values against the originals before deciding whether to
update the database or not.

There's no easy way to do this.

--Mark Jaeger
University of Chicago   phone: (312) 702-0328
Graduate School of Business    fax: (312) 702-0233
1101 East 58th Street, W309  email: cs_mj@gsbvax.uchicago.edu
Chicago, IL  60637-1511, USA         (internet)
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