Changing Location field types (e.g. string to real number)

[Molly]

We had a customer recently inquire:

For Rockworks15: When creating a New Field in borehole manager during an import (Location with optional fields) from Excel, I left "Field type" as "String". I could not figure out a way to change it (to Floating Point or Integer or Date...) after it was done. I ended re-creating a project and re-importing and CAREFULLY remembering to change the Field type during the set up for optional fields.

Is there a way to change the type of "Field Type" on an existing field?

There is no way to edit the field type in RockWorks. However, you can certainly change the field type by editing the borehole database (.MDB file) in Access and updating the data dictionaries in RockWorks.

Here are the steps you would need to take:
1. In RockWorks use Project / Backup Database to create a backup snapshot of the data, as-is.
2. Close RockWorks.
3. Open Microsoft Access.
4. Open the project MDB file.
5. Open the Location table, and choose View / Design View to access the table settings.
6. Locate the name of the new field, and click in the Data Type column.
7. Change the data type from String to Number, and choose Double or Integer as appropriate.
8. Save and close Access.
9. This is important: Use Windows Explorer to browse to your project folder, and rename the "System" folder inside of it, to "System_original". This will tell RockWorks to rebuild the data dictionaries based on the database settings (e.g. with the new field type). RockWorks relies on the data dictionaries, as well as the MDB structure, to build the database in the Borehole Manager.
10. Restart RockWorks. The program should rebuild the "System" sub-folder based on the edited database, and load the project database into the Borehole Manager.
11. If you don't see your new field displayed automatically, right-click on the Location table and select Choose Optional Fields. Be sure the new field has a check-mark next to it.
12. It is sometimes necessary to run the Project / Check Database Integrity.

Note that if there already is data in the new field, and if that data does not comply to a Double or Integer number format, then there is no guarantee what will happen when Access makes the field type modification.

Note also that the project folder's menu settings for RockWorks are stored in a file named "menus.ini". Once the new System folder is rebuilt (as described in step 10, above) you can close RockWorks, copy "menus.ini" from the "System_original" folder to the new "System" folder, and all of your menu settings for that project will be reloaded the next time the program is launched.

Molly Mayfield

RockWare Inc.