Re-Evaluating Field Rules

Description

If you define or change certain rules after you have already entered records in the table, you can select Rules > Re-evaluate Rules to re-apply these rules to each record. Field rule re-evaluation works with Calculated Fields rules, the Case Conversion rules, and all the Validation rules. When you re-evaluate Field Rules, you can also specify that invalid records be marked. This feature works with the following rules:

Required
Mask
Min/Max
Uniqueness
Cross-file validation
Custom validation
Calculated Field Rule

Example of Re-Evaluating Field Rules

The following example shows how a table can be affected by the Re-evaluate Rules option. Assume that a calculated field called Tax uses the expression:

TOTAL * .06

The table might look like this:

Total: Tax
100: 6.0
120: 7.2
140: 8.4

If the expression is changed to:

TOTAL * .10

And you add one new record; the table might look like this:

Total: Tax
100: 6.0
120: 7.2
140: 8.4
234: 23.4

The previously entered records are unchanged, but the new record has Tax computed with the new expression. After you re-evaluate the Field Rules, the table appears this way:

Total: Tax
100: 10.0
120: 12.0
140: 14.0
234: 23.4

Now all records have the tax field computed with the new expression. You can also re-evaluate calculated Field Rules by right-clicking on a table and selecting Utilities > Recalculate Calc Fields (Field Rules).