Check if fields change

HCL Domino Domino Forum
1

Hello,

I have a ‘Project’ form with 11 fields. I would like to capture in the ‘History’ any field that is changed. I created a ‘Copied’ form with the same 11 fields. I use ‘CopyAllItems’ in the PostOpen event of the ‘Project’ document to create a ‘Copied’ doc. In the QuerySave, I call the “CompareDocs” sub that compares the ‘Project’ doc with the ‘Copied’ doc. If any fields are different, it fills a ‘msg’ variable with the name of that field.

Problem:

  1. How do I get a handle to the ‘Copied’ doc; I can’t pass it to the QuerySave and I don’t want to have to save it.

Maybe there is a much easier way to do this. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

2

Subject: No, its a great idea. Just make sure that you declare a Global Variable…

copyDoc and it will be available in the PostOpen, QuerySave and QueryClose events (and you do not have to save it).

3

Subject: Check if fields change

Here’s how I do it:1) globally dim some variables representing each of the 11 fields;

  1. on postopen, set the vars with the value of each field, respectively;

  2. in querysave, assuming that any input validation is complete (which you can’t do out of hand, because field Input Validation occurs after querysave; I usually validate in a separate global function or in the querysave itself), compare the existing field values with those stored in the vars from above;

  3. if different, write to a history field;

  4. remember to reset the global vars if you want to catch serial changes in one editing session.

4

Subject: RE: Check if fields change

Bill(s):Thanks for the help; I’ve got it half-working! The variables are fine; I declared them globally. When I’m debugging and in QuerySave, the variables show up (populated) in ‘Globals.’ I then call a “CompareDocs” function (I changed it from a sub to a function) which has these lines in it:

If Cstr(doc.ProjName(0)) <> PName Then ChangeMsg = “Project Name”

If Cstr(doc.ProjType(0)) <> PType Then ChangeMsg = ChangeMsg + “Project Type”

…etc through all 11 fields building ‘ChangeMsg’ String which I also declared Globally.

(PName, PType are the Global variables)

and then:

If ChangeMsg = “” Then

CompareDocs = False

Else

CompareDocs = True

I then use the following in QuerySave:

If CompareDocs( doc ) Then

’ Add to History…

doc.HistoryChange = ChangeMsg & Chr(10) & doc.HistoryChange(0)

Two Problems and a Question:

  1. When testing, I’m only changing the first field (ProjName) but it adds EVERY field to ChangeMsg!

  2. When I get back to QuerySave, the ChangeMsg variable is not even listed!

Question:

Assuming I get ‘ChangeMsg’ populated correctly, if there was more than 1 field changed, how would I parse them out? For example, if 3 fields get changed, ‘ChangeMsg’ looks like:

Project NameProject TypeProject Size as one string!

I tried using Lists and ListTags and then I tried arrays to no avail. (This is confusing me because I’ve always just thrown up the combined string Msg in a messagebox!)

Thanks again.

5

Subject: RE: Check if fields change

Try to use the fields property of form class. It will be more flexible as you don’t have to hardcode fieldnames. Then compare uidoc values to backend values in Querysave e.g.

Sub Postmodechange(Source As Notesuidocument)

If Not Source Is Nothing Then

	If source.EDITMODE Then

		Set doc = source.document

		doc.ISAV_SprmecFlag = "1"

		doc.ISAV_SprelecFlag = "1"

		

'build an array of actual values

		If source.Isnewdoc Then Exit Sub	    'don't need an empty array

		Set S =  New NotesSession

		Set db =  S.CurrentDatabase

		Set doc =  Source.Document

		Set form =  db.GetForm(doc.Form(0))

		

'# of fields

		fieldnum =  Ubound(form.fields)

		

'redim array 

		Redim  FieldValues(fieldnum,1)

		

		counter = 0

'fill array with each fieldname and its contents

		Forall  field In form.fields	

			FieldValues(counter,0) =  field

			FieldValues(counter,1) =  source.fieldgettext(field)

			counter = counter +1

		End Forall

	End If

End If

End Sub

Querysave excerpt:

If Source.Isnewdoc Then

	Call History(Source)

	Call SendInfo(db, doc, source)

	Exit Sub

Else

	For fieldnum = 0 To  Ubound(FieldValues)

		If FieldValues(fieldnum,1)  <> source.fieldgettext(FieldValues(fieldnum,0))  Then

			Call History(source)			

			WasSaved = 1

			Exit For		'bail out at first modification found

		End If

	Next

End If
6

Subject: RE: Check if fields change

Sorry, company holidays kept me away.

  1. If you use a separate function, I would pass in the uidoc (Source) to comparedocs. I would then compare the global vars with using uidoc.FieldGetText([fieldname]). I would also use [ Not … = … ] instead of [ … <> … ] in the comparisons. Something is obviously wrong with your condition if the “then” gets executed each time.

  2. Is ChangeMsg global? I may need to be if you play with it in the function and then use it in the querysave. You don’t need it though … (below)

Question answer: Do all those comparisons in the querysave and don’t use a function. (I recommended it before for any separate field validations you might want to do, not for this.) For each non-equality in the field comparisons, add ", ". Then strip out the last two characters before the doc.historychange commit.