Search & Replace
You can use the Search and replace function to make global changes in your CatBase data.
How to Access Search & Replace
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Go to the data table that you need to change.
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Find the records that you want to apply the search & replace to, or select all the records in the table.
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Click the Search & Replace button at the top of the list
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The Search & Replace dialog opens:
There are four sections within this dialog:
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Search field: This is where you choose the field that you want to work on.
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Change From: Choose how you want the search to be done.
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Change To: Choose how you want it changed.
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Range: Choose which records you want to act on.
Search field
Click the dropdown and select the field that you want to act on.
Change From
How do you want to determine which records to change?
Is not blank
Choose this option and CatBase will find all the records in which the selected field is not empty.
Is blank
Find all the records in which the selected field contains nothing.
All records
Change all the records in the table (subject to choices you make in the Range area).
Contains
Find all records in which the specified text is found within the selected field (enter the search text into the text box).
Is equal to
Find records in which the field contents are exactly the same as the text that you enter into the texxt box. NOTE: This is not case-sensitive!
Is not equal to
Find records in which the selected field is NOT exactly the same as the text you specify on the text box. This is not case-sensitive.
Change To
Here's where you tell CatBase what you want to change the data to.
Replacement Text
Enter the text that you want to replace the found text with into the text box.
All Uppercase
Convert the text to UPPERCASE.
Mixed Case
Convert the text to Mixed Case. When you choose this option, you will see a further dialog after you click the OK button:
Title Case
The first letter of each word is in uppercase.and all other characters are in lowercase.
Sentence case
The first letter of the first word in each sentence is uppercase, and all the other characters are lowercase.
no uppercase
Just convert all the text to lowercase.
MOVE contents to field:
Copies the entire contents of the "Search" field to the selected field (choose the copy to field form the dropdown), and deletes it from the Search field.
COPY contents TO field:
Copies the contents of the Search field to the Replace field (select the replace field form the dropdown to the right).
COPY contents FROM field
Copy the contents of the Replace field (choose form the dropdown to the right) into the Search field.
APPEND contents to field:
Append the contents of the Search field to the contents of the Replace field (chhose the REplace field form the dropdown to the right) and optionally insert some separator text in front of the copied text (for example, a space or a comma).
DELETE the specified text
Simply delete the text without replacing it with anything. (Note - you can achieve the same resiult by leaving the first radio button selected and leaving the replacemenet text box empty).
Markup by
This option is only available for numberic fields.
"Mark up" the value by the percentage you specify - for example, you could globally increase all prices by 10%.
Round up to whole number
Select this option to round up any decimals to the next whole number.
Discount by
This option is only available for numeric fields.
Decrease the values in the Search field by the specified percentage. For example, discount all the prices by 5%.
Delete surrounding space
Simply delete any leading or trailing spaces in the text.
Range
Here you can specify how to determine which range of records to search.
Change selected text only
Only change the specified "search" text, not the entire contents of the field.
Change entire field
If the field contains the search text, replace the entire contents of the field with the Replace text.
Search selected records only
Act only on the liust of records that was shown in the List View when you clicked the Search & Replace button.
Search entire table
Regardless of the selection of records showing in the list view, perform the search & replace on ALL the records in the table.
A word of caution!
Changes made through the Search & Replace dialog are NOT UNDOABLE.
Always make sure that you have an up-to-date backup of your database before using Search & Replace! Please see the Automated Backup tutorial for info about backups.