ACC: Irregular Characters in Attached dBASE IV Memo Field (88647)
The information in this article applies to:
- Microsoft Access 1.0
- Microsoft Access 1.1
- Microsoft Access 2.0
This article was previously published under Q88647
Moderate: Requires basic macro, coding, and interoperability skills.
SYMPTOMS
If you have an attached dBASE IV table with a Memo field, a strange
character resembling an "i" (ASCII 161) appears randomly throughout the
Memo field when you view it in Microsoft Access.
CAUSE
This is a result of the way dBASE IV handles its Memo fields and how this
translates when you view the Memo field in Microsoft Access.
When you open a Memo field in dBASE IV, you are presented with an editor
that is fixed at 65 characters per line and that cannot be adjusted. In
order to format your Memo data so that it fits comfortably in the memo
editor, dBASE IV inserts invisible characters that act as carriage
returns. These characters become an actual part of the data in the .DBF
file. Microsoft Access does not use these characters to format the Memo
data because the size of a Memo field is adjustable. These characters are
ignored and consequently appear in the Memo field on your form.
RESOLUTION
You can create an Access Basic procedure to remove these characters from
the Memo field. The procedure should go through each record in the table
and copy the Memo field, character by character, to a temporary holding
area, ignoring all instances of Chr(161). The procedure should then copy
the corrected string back into the Memo field.
STATUS
This behavior is by design.
MORE INFORMATION
dBASE IV is manufactured by Borland International, Inc., a vendor
independent of Microsoft; we make no warranty, implied or otherwise,
regarding this product's performance or reliability.
Modification Type: | Major | Last Reviewed: | 5/9/2003 |
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Keywords: | kb3rdparty kbprb KB88647 |
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