Hi Pierre.

 

The documentation is generally helpful, but still doesn't clarify what you have to do to enter a numeric value. My experience is that if you have auto set, then double-clicking in the number field will cause the next available number to be assigned to that field. So far as I can tell, that behaviour is not documented. I am loath to change the documentation myself until I have a little bit more clarity concerning what InfoQube should be doing at this point.

The specific problem that I am reporting relates to a number field for which the auto option has been selected. The behaviour up until recently has been that, when I double-click on a blank value for this field, the next available sequence number is displayed in the field and when I navigate away from that value, it is preserved. In the specific instance which I am reporting, as I double-click on the value, a new value is assigned, but as soon as I navigate away from the field, the value is blanked out. Furthermore, if I navigate using arrow keys to existing assigned numeric values, as I reach each value, it vanishes.

What I decided to do was to create a completely new number field, again with auto set, and to create a completely new set of numeric values using Edit / Renumber values.This new set of values is behaving as I would expect it to. As an example, the field EntryNr runs 1..2186. Another field, EntryID, is calculated on the basis of a call to a VB function as part of a row equation which reads:

 

=iif(isnull([EntryDate]),EntryID,setEntryID([EntryDate],10*[EntryNr]))

 

For EntryNr 2186, where EntryDate is 11/03/2016 Friday, the value of EntryID is then 2016/03/11__021860.

For your and general interest, the application here is to create a completely unique identifier for journal (diary) entries which have a date component but where there may be several journal entries on a given date. I cannot use IDItem as the basis for this unique key, because IDItem is not assigned until after the current row is committed to the database.

So, although I think there is a problem associated with auto-numbering, I have myself found a satisfactory workaround. There must be something unusual about the values in this particular field. The values are not a dense set, that is to say, the numbers are not consecutive. That is because I set up the original values on the basis of a start value of 10 with a step of 10 and not of one. This will not be a common use case!

 

APPENDIX: Here's the code of the function:

 

Function setEntryID (EntryDate, EntryNr)
' amended 02/09/2015 so that the generated entry ID starts with a date in YYYY/MM/DD format, therefore creating a proper sort key
Dim EntryNrAsText, yyyy, mm, dd, ignore
If  IsNumeric(EntryNr) then
  EntryNrAsText = Right(CStr(1000000+EntryNr), 6)
Else
  setEntryID = "EntryNr not numeric"

  exit function
End If
setEntryID = cdate(EntryDate)
If  Len(setEntryID) = 10 Then
  dd = Left(setEntryID, 2)
  If  IsNumeric(dd) Then
    If  Mid(setEntryID, 3, 1) = "/" Then
      mm = Mid(setEntryID, 4, 2)
      If  isnumeric(mm) Then
        If  Mid(setEntryID, 6, 1) = "/" Then
          yyyy = Mid(setEntryID, 7, 4)
          If  IsNumeric(yyyy) Then
            setEntryID = yyyy & "/" & mm & "/" & dd & "__" & EntryNrAsText
          Else
            setEntryID = "EntryDate: yyyy not numeric!"
          End If
        Else
          setEntryID = "EntryDate: / expected but not found!"
        End If
      else
        setEntryID = "EntryDate: mm not numeric!"
      End if
    End If
  Else
    setEntryID = "EntryDate: dd not numeric!"
  End If
Else
  setEntryID = "EntryDate: length expected ten characters; length found " & Len(setEntryID)
End if
End Function
 

 

Mark GREGORY, Hull, England- GMT +0/+1; EST +5