find BLANK and replace with data

[SarahD]

Hi-
I have many records with no data in a particular field.
I'm trying to do a Find&Replace on this field to enter the
same data into all of these. F&R won't accept a blank.
What can I do to enter in the same data into all these
records? (We're talking 100's of records per week so I
need a timesaver.)
Thanks!

 

[Bill Edwards]

Use an update query similar to:

UPDATE tblStudent SET tblStudent.Gender = "Unknown"
WHERE len(trim(tblStudent.Gender) & "") < 1;

or

UPDATE tblStudent SET tblStudent.Gender = "Unknown"
WHERE tblStudent.Gender IS NULL;

 

[Guest]

If you constantly have to update these records I would look into validating
the data at the time the record is created.

 

[SarahD]

I didn't even think of an update qry- but you're right- it
worked! Thanks so much.

PS- why does this happen and why don't we set a validation
for this - this would require the company that wrote this
for us to fix it - they're history and I try to muddle
thru the best I can with this sites help of course!