Reading data from hand held barcode reader

[Jay Ashworth]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Rod Caddy" <rcaddy at pro-set.com>

> I am working on a project that should be quite simple but I believe I am
> making it much harder than it has to be. I have created a file that has
> basic data for inventory. The concept is that when the empty record is
> displayed a barcode will be read and will fill all the fields except
> the quantity. The quantity will be entered manually and this record is
> saved and you move on to the next record. The only field that the user
> would have access to would be quantity. My problem is at what point do
> I read the barcode so it can be parsed out to the fields. I realize
> this should be simple but for the life of me I cannot seem to wrap my
> brain around this. Thanks for any suggestions you might have.

The phrasing of your question suggests that you've not thought deeply 
enough about what you're doing.

You have, we assume, an *actual* inventory file, with the items and their
barcode numbers.

What you're trying to do is to populate a *physical count* file, with 
4 things: operator ID, date/time, stock number and quantity seen.

So you're in "add a new record loop" mode, and you come up with the cursor
in the barcode field.  User scans, the program then WLFs to look up the
item data, so they can confirm it's the right item, and then drops
them in the quantity field where they manually enter the number, and
SAVE the record.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

When done, print the edit report, allow user to check, and then post
quantities to the inventory file.

You'll have to decide whether you want to just replace the old number,
and what to do about over/short situations (physical inventory is 
generally *about* over/short, so presumably, you'll want to show those
numbers on the edit report, to allow checking before posting, but you
may want to keep a running log of over/short situations as well,
in an inventory quantity adjustments file).

Does that help any?

Cheers,
-- jra