AMBIGUOUS function

Returns a TRUE value if the last FIND statement for a particular record found more than one record that met the specified index criteria.

Syntax


`AMBIGUOUS record`

record: The name of a record or record buffer used in a previous FIND statement.
To access a record in a table defined for multiple databases, you might have to qualify the record's table name with the database name. See the record definition in the Record phrase reference entry for more information.

Examples

The following example retrieves a customer record based on a name (cname) supplied by the user. If the procedure finds a record, it displays fields from that record. If it does not find a record because more than one record matched the selection criteria (name = cname), it displays the message: "There is more than one customer with that name". If it does not find a record because no records matched the selection criteria, it displays "Cannot find customer with that name".

r-ambig.p

`DEFINE VARIABLE cName NO-UNDO LIKE Customer.Name LABEL "Cust Name". REPEAT: SET cName. FIND Customer NO-LOCK WHERE Customer.Name = cName NO-ERROR. IF AVAILABLE Customer THEN DISPLAY Customer.CustNum Customer.Address Customer.City Customer.State Customer.PostalCode. ELSE IF AMBIGUOUS Customer THEN MESSAGE "There is more than one customer with that name". ELSE MESSAGE "Cannot find customer with that name". END.`

DEFINE VARIABLE cName NO-UNDO LIKE Customer.Name LABEL "Cust Name".

REPEAT:
  SET cName.
  FIND Customer NO-LOCK WHERE Customer.Name = cName NO-ERROR.
  IF AVAILABLE Customer THEN
    DISPLAY Customer.CustNum Customer.Address Customer.City Customer.State
      Customer.PostalCode.
  ELSE IF AMBIGUOUS Customer THEN
    MESSAGE "There is more than one customer with that name".
  ELSE 
    MESSAGE "Cannot find customer with that name".
END.

Sometimes the AMBIGUOUS function returns a TRUE value when there is no ambiguity. For example, if there is exactly one customer record, the following statement finds that record. Otherwise, the statement always returns a message of "not found" rather than ambiguous:


`FIND Customer WHERE Customer.Name BEGINS "".`

Additionally, the following statement succeeds if there is only one Smith listed in the database:


`FIND Employee WHERE Employee.LastName = "Smith" AND Employee.FirstName BEGINS "".`

If the FIND statement contains a BEGINS operator with a string, where multiple records have that field beginning with such string, and one of the fields matches the string exactly, that record is returned and is not considered an ambiguous request. For example:


`FIND myTable where myField BEGINS "Run".`

In this example, FIND returns the record where myField is "Run" even if another record contains "Running" in that field.

Notes

AMBIGUOUS is useful only when there is an index. If you use the AMBIGUOUS function to test a work file record, the function returns a value of FALSE because work files do not have indexes.

ABL Reference