Are hidden fields in forms a bad coding practice?

[minchazo]

Hello,

I've been creating some forms recently in Access 2003 and using hidden textboxes quite a bit. As an example, the visible textbox CasesDone uses the DLookup function to sum the records in table Cases.

The hidden textbox in the form (HiddenCasesDone) is bound to the Week_Data table and I set the value of that textbox with a form event.

Is there a better way to do this? I seem to recall when taking my VB classes (way too long ago) that I should avoid using too many hidden fields... though I could be wrong.

minchazo

[FishVal]

Hi, minchazo.

In most cases saving calculated data to table is considered to be a bad programming practice. Not sure as for hidden controls.

Regards,
Fish

[NeoPa]

As fish says, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with using hidden fields on your forms. I'm afraid that this doesn't necessarily mean your code is efficient or well thought out.

You haven't explained your situation fully enough to say for sure, but some of the comments do ring warning bells in line with what Fish has already said (about saving calculated data).

[minchazo]

In most cases saving calculated data to table is considered to be a bad programming practice.

Yup, that would be me. I need to design reports/forms to calculate and display the values instead of trying to record it in a table, correct?

And I need to go review my old database design textbooks...

[NeoPa]

Typically, the queries do all that sort of rubbish for you rather than the forms / reports or even updating the tables.

There is a facility within the form / report object to handle calculations where necessary, but this is generally easier to handle in the queries.