Wildcard for text string

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

Trying to use delete query to clean up imported data. One field holds a
unique identifier that is always 3 letters followed by 4 numbers, no spaces,
field properties set to text.

Is there I way to style a "Not Like" "Wildcard" so that the identifier will
remain and everything else be deleted?

Thank you
 
You want to delete the data from all the fields except the identifier field?
Or you want to delete all records except those that contain the identifier?

More details, please.
 
Sorry, I wasn't very clear at all.

I may not be able to do anything with the file after all. Each record has
fields over several rows.
Field1Column1 is a unique logon name, field2Column2 is the last name,
field3Column3 is the first name, each record has many rows. The row directly
under the row holding the names has a header in the field2 column "ID:" then
the ""???####" Identifier sits in column4. Something like this

J3E.TGH Smith John
ID: STY3546


Then there are rows of unusable and un-needed datamaking up columns 2, 3,
and 4., before the next record.

I would love to be able to move the STY3546 up into column 4 on the same row
and the rest of the name and login info.

Thanks for any help
 
Trying to use delete query to clean up imported data. One field holds a
unique identifier that is always 3 letters followed by 4 numbers, no spaces,
field properties set to text.

Is there I way to style a "Not Like" "Wildcard" so that the identifier will
remain and everything else be deleted?

Thank you
Click to expand...

NOT LIKE "[A-Z][A-Z][A-Z]####"

should do it... try it first of course, and back up your database
before running this or any other delete query!

John W. Vinson[MVP]
 
Your example doesn't give me enough data to give you a "solid" answer, but
it sounds as if the data are not well structured into a single record being
one row in the text file.

You probably would need a customized solution via VBA code, where you'd open
the text file from code, read the data and write them into a recordset so
that you control what goes where, and then you could probably clean up the
data from there.
 
Thank you both. John, your solution worked. The other solution that matched
the identifier was "???####".

As for the structure of the imported data, I think a programming expert
could do it, I certainly cannot come up with a solution.

Thanks again
 
Thank you both. John, your solution worked. The other solution that matched
the identifier was "???####".
Click to expand...

That's less exclusive... ? matches ANY character, so 1234444 would be
a hit.
As for the structure of the imported data, I think a programming expert
could do it, I certainly cannot come up with a solution.
Click to expand...

Been there... done that... know the feeling!

John W. Vinson[MVP]
 
Back
Top