TMG-L Archives

From: JH&K Whitehead <>
Subject: Re: TMG-L: Search & Replace
Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 06:55:03 -0700

Cheri Casper wrote:

> . . . in working with your master place list, I am trying to do a
> search & replace. However, if the field is empty and I wish to
> replace it with some text, I get a "fatal error" message, missing
> expression. So, HOW do you replace an empty field with text? . . .

Cheri,
In some cases you can use Tools|Master Place List|Search&Replace to
replace an empty field, but you have to have some field in the S&R
dialog box filled in.

As an example, I wanted to fill in the Country field for all the
locations for which I had the state. I did a search & replace for each
state that existed in my dataset, so a typical dialog looked like:

Search for places . . . and
replace them with . . .
. . .
State: Virginia
Virginia
Country: -USA

. . .

(I used the exclusion marker hyphen so that "USA" won't generally
display or print, but I can still keep track of it. I don't use the
exclusion marker with other countries, because I want them to print.)

So, S&R may or may not save you a lot of work, depending on your
data and what you want to do. It does give you the opportunity to clean
up other fields while you're filling in the blanks.

John Whitehead

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TMG-L The Internet Mailing List for The Master Genealogist
To unsubscribe: Send an e-mail to with 'UNSUBSCRIBE TMG-L'
or... if you get the digest version: 'UNSUBSCRIBE TMG-L-DIGEST'
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

This thread:

• Re: TMG-L: Search & Replace by JH&K Whitehead <>