Form Issue

[Tom Robb]

I sent the original message on the bottom and you replied
with the below message. The only validation that I have
is to insert 10 characters into the date field, text
only, digits, and other I indicated a "/" can also be
entered.

I also required that they submit their name and I didn't
put any constraints on that field, simply that they need
to put a value there.


Could this be the problem? If the user inserts some
value in a field that is not appropriate, would they not
get a warning message to fix it first or at least get an
error message when they try to hit submit?

What do you mean when you say "a string doesn't
get entered into a column to hold numbers, or a date is
formatted correctly
prior to doing the insert of the form data"

Tom

Chances are, it's not the browser. I would guess that it
has something to do
with the database insert that is performed going badly.
What kind of form
validation are you doing to make sure that, for example,
a string doesn't
get entered into a column to hold numbers, or a date is
formatted correctly
prior to doing the insert of the form data?

--
Kevin Spencer
...Net Developer
Microsoft MVP
Big things are made up
of lots of little things.

message

I have a form set up on a website that dumps to Access.
One of the users (who has Windows 98) submitted
information on her end, got the confirmation sheet, but
the data did not come through.

I have had close to 500 successful data submissions, but
cannot figure out why she is the only one (that I am
aware of) having the problem. Part of me wants to drive
to her computer and submit the form and see if it is a
user problem, but I trust this person is capable of
entering data and clicking on submit.

Is there a setting on Internet Options or Internet
Explorer or a minimum Internet Explorer Version that
users need to have to successfully use the forms?

Let me know. Any suggestions are appreciated.

..

 

[Kevin Spencer]

Hi Tom,

The date field may be indeed the problem. A database can only recognize a
limited number of date formats, and your Date validation is not going to cut
it. For example, a user could type in 2003/01/12, which would certainly
cause an error. Or a user could type in "December 1" and pass your
validation test, but cause an error with the database.

What do you mean when you say "a string doesn't
get entered into a column to hold numbers, or a date is
formatted correctly
prior to doing the insert of the form data"

Databases store data in different formats. Text data is stored as strings,
which means that any text field isn't going to cause a problem. Even an
empty field will submit an empty string, which is still a string. However,
numeric data is not stored as a string. It is stored as a binary number. And
the database will not allow any non-numeric data into the field. So, for
example, if you had a numeric column in your table, and the form field was
left blank, well, of course, blank is not a number. Or if you entered a
character in instead of a number, well, you follow. Dates are stored
internally as numbers. But again, the database can recognize a number of
date string formats, and the string you enter in for a date must match one
of the recognized formats or the database will not know what the date is,
and will throw an error.

Solutions for entering date data into a database vary, from using
JavaScripty regular expressions for date validation to using drop-down list
boxes, so that the user can only enter the correct data, and having the
server-side code parse the data in them into a valid date string.

At any rate, I would suspect that bad data entry is what is causing your
intermittent problem.

--
Kevin Spencer
..Net Developer
Microsoft MVP
Big things are made up
of lots of little things.