asked on

MS ACCESS

I have a table in MS ACCESS with a field Name STATE.

I need to update all the state field values to match with the list I have.

For example.

Connecticut should read as CT
North Carolina should read as NC
Indiana should read as IN
Massachusetts should read as MA

I have all the distinct state values. If someone could help with the sample above that will be helpful

Dale Fye

Generally, I include both State_Name and State_CD in my states table.

I'm not sure what you have in mind though, and if you have a list of all the state names and codes, what do you need from us?

Dany Balian

run a query with all of these sqls, it should fix your data:

update tablename set state='CT' where lcase(state)='connecticut';
update tablename set state='NC' where lcase(state)='north carolina';
update tablename set state='IN' where lcase(state)='indiana';
update tablename set state='MA' where lcase(state)='massachusetts';

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of course replace tablename with your tablename

Dale Fye

Why go to all that trouble Dany, when you could simply open the table and make the changes? This is why I questioned what the OP really wants to do.

Dany Balian

i assumed he has many (hundreds or thousands) of records.. and he wants to correct all his data!

Dale Fye

Probably not a bad assumption, but I'd still just create a States table (tbl_States) with all of the correct values and then use that for the update. The OP will likely still run into misspellings of the state names, but that should be minimal (hopefully).

Dany Balian

True! i was just trying to answer the question as it is!

lux sat

ASKER

Dale:

My table(Candidate) consists of thousands of records with a STATE FIELD. I want to update all the state values.

I have selected distinct state values from the table (Candidate) and I have got that in a new table with state values matching with mine. check my attachment for a sample. Basically trying to abbreviate (AZ,CA,CT,IN,NC,etc.....).

Thanks,
LakshmiSTATE-experts.xlt

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Dale Fye

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lux sat

ASKER

Dale:

Actually I need to update the Candidate table.

Thanks,
Lakshmi

Dale Fye

That is what that query will do. Create a table (tbl_States) from the Excel spreadsheet you sent. Make the left column (I called it State_Name) the primary key of this table. Then use the query I provided above to update all of the State field in the Candidates table.

lux sat

ASKER

Thanks Dale

Dale Fye

Glad I could help.