forcing a number to be interpreted as a field name

[Bob Sneidar]

When you say "forms" do you mean "web forms" or PDF forms? It may not matter much. I wrote an interface which allows the user to associate a database column with a PDF form control. Much the same thing could be done which would allow you to call your form fields anything you like. Populating and extracting data would use this linking system whenever going from one to the other. It's not the least trouble, but it is the most flexible way going forward, which is what I was eventually forced to concede. I resisted it for a long time. 

Bob S


> On May 30, 2017, at 17:30 , Dr. Hawkins via use-livecode <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> 
> I'm a very firm believer in this, and have been since HyperCard 1.0 . . .
> 
> However, the forms changed to this stupid system after my enine was
> written, and I'm trying to find the way to accommodate this that both the
> "least hackity" and has the smallest number of rewrites.
> 
> The least painful things that I have thought of so far are
> 1) a global array with names of the numeric values, and switch to working
> with this for display when the datatype is integer
> 2) have a custom property in groups with such a translation table for the
> values used when it exists
> 
> I think I actually did a good enough job in general that there is a single
> handler that has to change!
> 
> But even these mean going from a super-clean rendition to a series of
> similar switches . . .
> 
> *argh*
> 
> 
> -- 
> Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
> (702) 508-8462