Configuring property data types

The data type of a property determines the type of data that the property can contain. This makes storage of the data most efficient, but it prevents other data types from being saved in the property. Meridian supports the major data types used by most modern database management systems. The string, integer, date/time, and memo data types will serve most purposes.

Warning    You can configure the data type of a property only when creating the property. It is important that you choose the correct data type carefully. If you create a property with the wrong data type and it already contains data for many objects, you can try this workaround: Create a new property with the correct data type. Migrate the data from the original property to the new property. The Set Property Value command in PowerUser is useful for this. Then delete the original property definition. This requires that you match the property validation and value assignments, update property pages and reports manually, and update all references to the original property name in VBScript.

To configure a property’s data type, select a data type from the Type list at the time of property creation. The different types are described in the following table.

Tip    Unless you need to perform mathematical calculations on a number, use the string data type even for numbers if the value in a property will be concatenated with string values from other properties in VBScript. This prevents the need to convert the numeric data into an equivalent string. The string data type is also the most flexible and can serve the most purposes, whereas other data types are less flexible. If you use a different data type, you may discover later that it is too limiting. You can often achieve the same data validation that a more restrictive data type offers by configuring the Validation options for a string value.