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johnnyg123Flag for United States of America

asked on

conditional update query

I have 2 ms access 2003 tables with the following sample data

table a
id      Floater
1      
2    
3
4


table b
id      Floater
1      N
3      Y

Note: there is only one entry for a given id on both tables
          there may be id entries on table a that are not on table b

I am trying to write an update query that will  update the value of floater on table a

 if there is an matching id entry on table b I would like the value of floater on table a to be set to that on table b


If there is no matching id entry on table b I would like the floater value on table a to be set to N

using the example data I would like table a to have the following values after the update query is run


table a
id      Floater
1      N
2      N
3      Y
4      N
Avatar of peter57r
peter57r
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update tableA set floater = nz(Dlookup("Floater", "TableB","Id = " & tableA.Id) , "N")
Avatar of johnnyg123

ASKER

I have the access query prompts on

when I run the query I get a message saying it is going to update 4 records but then when I click ok
I get an error message that says

Microsoft Office Access can't update all the records in the update query

Microsoft office access didn't update 4 field(s) due to a type conversion failure

I have attached a sample database
test.mdb
You'll need the following, because the id fields are text:

    UPDATE tablea
    SET floater = Nz(DLookup("floater", "tableb", "id = """ & id & """"), "N")

@JezWalters is right
String variables need to be surrounded by quotes
But, gazillions of quotes drive me mad and are VERY hard to debug
Chr(34) is a quote mark
Works in VBA and the query editor

This works and is easier to digest
UPDATE tableA
SET tableA.floater = nz(DLookUp("Floater","TableB","Id = " & Chr(34) & tableA.Id & Chr(34)),"N");

Chr(34) & tableA.Id & Chr(34) is your text field id surrounded by quotes
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of Jez Walters
Jez Walters
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