Date of Birth field anomolies

message from Support on 6 May 2004

I have a table of over 81k lines. One field within this table is for date
of birth (DOB).
I'd like to set this as a date/time type (format: dd-mm-yyyy) yet when I do
this it tries to delete some records (28k). I'm allowing no entries so I
know it's not that.
Looking thru this column I have noticed that some entries are just 2 digit
eg: 15.
This may indicate the users age I'm not sure.
What would be best practice to format this field?
1) leave as text?
2) delete the entries in that field (not the record)?
3) something else?

Also, what query would I run to find out where the anomolies are?
(v new to access and queries)
thanks

RobFMS replied to Support on 6 May 2004

I would create a new field called NewDOB, keeping the existing field as is.

I would then determine which fields are actual dates and copy them to the
new field. For the fields that you have non-dates, you can apply the
appropriate business rule to determine a date (or just leave it blank).

By using the new field, you avoid any type of deletions. At some point when
all is corrected, then you can delete the old field (DOB) and rename the new
one appropriately.

HTH

Support replied to RobFMS on 7 May 2004

Thanks for the suggestion - I shall try it out.

Archived message: Date of Birth field anomolies (Microsoft Access Forms)