Base: Bulk Edit or Import to Existing Records?

Hello,

I have an existing table named “Transactions” with over 1,600 records. After importing those records from a Calc spreadsheet (and doing further editing that will be difficult to re-create), I realized I needed to replace the null space in column “Submitted Data” with the word ‘unknown’ for IDs 0001 through 1198. I want to edit the existing records rather than create new ones, and do it without disturbing the data in the “Submitted Data” field for IDs 1199 - 1600.

Is there a way to copy and past the word ‘unknown’ into the “Submitted Data” field in bulk, or can I import just the “Submitted Data” column from a Calc file to overwrite only the specific fields?

I may be doing it incorrectly, but when I try to append the field, new IDs are created (IDs 1601 - 2798). Separately I tried creating a relationship with a newly imported table holding the “ID” and “Submitted Data” fields, but the data doesn’t import.

Thanks in advance!

Hello,

Use SQL. Copy your Base file or the table to be modified for safety reasons in case something goes wrong. You can run the SQL update from Tools->SQL.

UPDATE "Transactions"
SET "Submitted Data" = 'unknown'
WHERE ID between 1 and 1198

For Update syntax (general) see → The SQL UPDATE Statement

Wow, that was so easy it felt like cheating. Problem solved! Thanks for the fast response!

@FullMoonMadness,

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