{
  "id": "2002-february-updating-with-access",
  "slug": "2002-february-updating-with-access",
  "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2002-february-updating-with-access.html",
  "year": 2002,
  "month": "February",
  "monthNum": 2,
  "headline": "Updating with Access",
  "kicker": "From the Lists",
  "author_name": "",
  "author_title": "",
  "affiliation": "IRE and NICAR",
  "summary": "A NICAR-L discussion post explains how to use the Trim function in an Access update query to remove leading and trailing spaces from database fields.",
  "keywords": [
    "Access",
    "Trim",
    "spaces"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Data & Databases",
    "Technology"
  ],
  "technologies": [
    "Access"
  ],
  "full_text": "Updating with Access\n\nQ: Is there a way to trim leading and trailing spaces from an Access field by doing an update query or some other function? I tried updating NewField with the expression: Trim([OldField]) and all it does is remove the equal sign and insert the text \"trim([OldField])\" in the field I'm updating.\n\nA: I just used this one and it worked fine, trimming excess spaces at the beginning or end but not in the middle:\n\nUPDATE [Text] SET [Text].newtext=Trim([oldtext]);\n\nText is the table. Oldtext and Newtext are the two fields.\n\nTo subscribe the NICAR-L discussion list, follow the instructions at www.ire.org/membership/subscribe/nicar-l.html.",
  "provenance": {
    "extracted_by": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6",
    "extracted_at": "2026-07-05",
    "verified": true
  },
  "similar": [
    {
      "slug": "2000-april-trimming-spaces",
      "score": 0.454
    },
    {
      "slug": "1995-october-getting-access-for-stories",
      "score": 0.16
    },
    {
      "slug": "1996-august-switching-from-foxpro-to-access",
      "score": 0.154
    },
    {
      "slug": "1998-february-converting-dates-in-access",
      "score": 0.149
    },
    {
      "slug": "2002-september-october-data-access-year-after-attacks-files-still-guarded",
      "score": 0.147
    }
  ],
  "html_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2002-february-updating-with-access.html",
  "json_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2002-february-updating-with-access.json"
}