AllowZeroLength Property

Applies To

Field Object.

Description

Sets or returns a value that indicates whether a zero-length string ("") is a valid setting for the Value property of a Field object with a Text or Memo data type. For an object not yet appended to the Fields collection, this property is read/write.

Settings and Return Values

The setting or return value is a Boolean expression that indicates if a value is valid. The data type is Boolean. It returns True (-1) if a zero-length string is a valid value.

Remarks

For a Field object, use of the AllowZeroLength property depends on the object that contains the Fields collection that the Field object is appended to, as the following table shows.

Object appended to	Usage

Index	Not supported
QueryDef	Read-only
Recordset	Read-only
Relation	Not supported
TableDef	Read/write

You can set this property to False (0) to make sure you can't use a zero-length string to set the Value property of a Field object.

You can use this property along with the Required, ValidateOnSet, or ValidationRule property to determine the validity of a value in a field.

See Also

QueryDef Object, Required Property, TableDef Object, ValidateOnSet Property, ValidationRule Property, ValidationText Property, Value Property.

Example (Microsoft Access)

The following example creates a new Field object and sets its AllowZeroLength property to True.

Sub ZeroLengthField()
    Dim dbs As Database, tdf As TableDef, fld As Field

    ' Return Database variable that points to current database.
    Set dbs = CurrentDb
    Set tdf = dbs.TableDefs!Employees
    ' Create new field in Employees table.
    Set fld = tdf.CreateField("SpouseName", dbText, 15)
    ' Allow zero-length strings in field.
    fld.AllowZeroLength = True
    ' Append Field object.
    tdf.fields.Append fld
End Sub