Re-formatting a field

[Guest]

Hi,

I currently have a field on a form in my database that is a Text data type,
255 character limit. I want to reformat the field so that it has an input
mask of 7 numerical characters only.

What will happen with the existing information in the database, after this
field is reformatted? Since the data in this field prior to reformatting
will have any combination of numbers and letters, it won't fit the input mask
after I reformat it. Will this cause errors? Will the prior data no longer
display properly?

Thanks,
Rosemary

 

[Al Camp]

Rosemary,
If your data is primarily alpha-numeric, then that data will be lost when
you first redefine the field as numeric.
The Input mask only comes into play when adding new values after the
field has been redefined.
Al Camp