On Sat, 29 May 2010 08:07:12 -0700 (PDT), joe_G wrote:

Hello,

I was hoping someone could assist with the following expression in
access that combines the Left function and Len function:

I have column called ID, which has about 700,000 records and each ID
can be anywhere from 7 to 10 characters; however, I all IDs to have
only 7 characters and this means removing characters that are greater
than 7. For example, smith09 is fine, but smith09990 would need to
reduced to smith09. Basically, i need an expression that will check
every ID and, if ID 7 characters, use the left function to cut it to
7 characters.
Please let me know if you need more information:

I provided a table below of what I need. There are over 700,000
records in this table:

You've got a possible major problem if this ID is intended to be a unique ID:
what if you have records with

SMITH09001
SMITH09123
SMITH09X
SMITH0935

These will all trunctate to SMITH09, losing any distinction between them.

How do you anticipate dealing with this issue - or is it irrelevant?
--

John W. Vinson [MVP]