String formulas can be used in a formula field. String formulas can be used when you want to concatenate fields and/or text into one field. An excellent example of this is if you are extracting name and address information for a database file. Your database file may require the city and state in the same field, but Tabs3 stores both the city and state as separate fields.

Only field references are allowed in string formulas; column references are not allowed. Alphanumeric fields, date fields, and numeric fields can be used in string formulas; however, decimal fields cannot be used.

When using multiple Tabs3 fields in a string formula, you cannot mix "types." For example, you cannot include an alphanumeric field and a numeric field in the same formula. You cannot include a numeric field and a date field in the same formula. You can however, include an alphanumeric field and a date field in the same formula.

You can enter your own free form text as long as it is delimited with single quotes. For example, if you wanted to place a comma followed by a space between 2 fields, you would enter: ','

The addition operator (+) is the only operator that can be used in string formulas.

In the example where you want to combine City and State into one column, you would enter a formula of:

F8+', '+F9

This formula will extract the City, insert a comma and one blank space followed by the State.

The Tabs3 Report Writer removes any blank spaces at the end of a field. For example, if the city of "OMAHA" (5 characters) is used (City is a 20 character field), the remaining 15 characters are truncated and are not extracted.