Re: Checking for replication of characters in a field

The only thing I can think of (because there is no real way to validate 
something like that) is to ensure that they enter a first/last name 
format.  ie XXXX  XXXXX.  If they go that far to avoid entry, you've done 
all you can do.  Basically ensure that there is characters, at least one 
space, and trailing chars after the space.  As programmers we can only do 
so much, but if the user chooses to enter garbage info then there's not 
much you can do.  Also, what you could do is stamp the user name on the 
record as it's created and that may cause the users to be more careful 
with their data entry, if they know someone can track the garbage data to 
them.

Ron Power
Programmer
Information Services
City Of St. John's, NL
P.O. Box 908
St. John's, NL
A1C 5M2
709-576-8132
rpower@xxxxxxxxxx
http://www.stjohns.ca/
___________________________________________________________________________
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"Eric A. Wolf" <eric_a_wolf@xxxxxxxxxxx> 
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2005/08/25 04:01 PM
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Subject
Checking for replication of characters in a field






To the list,
I am trying to create a utility to prevent users from entering 
insignificant
data in a field.  For example, if the user is required to enter a Contact
Name (which cannot be verified against any table), I can check for blanks
and issue an error.  However, if the enter a ".", "X" or all "*", an error
will not be issue. Has anyone written something like this (or similar) to
handle this?

I could write a routine to go through every character on the keyboard to
test  IF fieldname = *all'x' but what about just checking for three AAA's 
or
999 in a 20 character field?

TIA...
Eric Wolf