asked on Doing a Lookup to find the Values on one Table within a Cell of a second Table without an Exact Match
Sorry for the Title Gore.
I have a cell where users enter qualification codes. Sometimes it's a single code, but sometimes it's multiple codes separated with a comma.
I have a table with additional information for these codes. Each row of that table is one code.
I have a report that returns the additional information of the codes, but only if they're present.
The problem is I don't know of a way to return the additional information when multiple codes are present in the first cell. And even if it did look within the cell for matches, some codes are parts of other codes. So a code of "V" is within a code of "V2" even though "V" and "V2" are different codes.
Example:
Users fill out data on a table, and enter the appropriate codes as needed
![Table for Users]()
The second table has the descriptions. I want to somehow match the codes on the first table with the second table and pull the descriptions
![Table with Descriptions]()
In the above example the codes pulled from the second table should be S, SW, C, R.
I have a cell where users enter qualification codes. Sometimes it's a single code, but sometimes it's multiple codes separated with a comma.
I have a table with additional information for these codes. Each row of that table is one code.
I have a report that returns the additional information of the codes, but only if they're present.
The problem is I don't know of a way to return the additional information when multiple codes are present in the first cell. And even if it did look within the cell for matches, some codes are parts of other codes. So a code of "V" is within a code of "V2" even though "V" and "V2" are different codes.
Example:
Users fill out data on a table, and enter the appropriate codes as needed
The second table has the descriptions. I want to somehow match the codes on the first table with the second table and pull the descriptions
In the above example the codes pulled from the second table should be S, SW, C, R.
Microsoft Access
Last Comment
Dale Fye
in the First table, with more than one code ... is this a regular text field, or a multi-value field?
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I would not normally recommend storing more than one code in a single field of the table. I would generally (ALWAYS) create a separate table with a one-to-many relationship between your TestID (TestDate, TestLocation) and the Weather code. The best way to do this is via a subform for entering the associated WeatherCode values with each test.
I agree with Dale. It is much better to create a related table with one code per record -- then matching things up is easy!
ASKER
Wow, this code works like a charm! Thank you so much, Dale!
ASKER
FYI anyone reading this later. I agree with Dale and Crystal that adding multiple codes into a single cell is sloppy design. However this is how our current software works and I can't change it. "I didn't start the fire" as they say, I can only work with what I have.
Glad I could help.
That WHERE clause is not very efficient, but it does accomplish the task at hand.
That WHERE clause is not very efficient, but it does accomplish the task at hand.