As you probably know, there is a great difference in the performance
of Access when dealing with a dozen or so test records to dealing with
a recordset of several thousand records. I needed something to provide
me with a means of generating large numbers of plausible records just
so that I could fine-tune my projects accordingly. I have looked at a 
few random record generators which could do the job one way or another,
but nothing seemed to integrate with Access in quite the way I would
like.

So here is my first release of an Automatic Record Generator for use 
with Microsoft Access tables. It populates any number of fields with 
data which is meaningful to the user, e.g. an address will look like 
a real address, towns will be in the correct county, etc. The user is 
also able to define lists of possible values which can be randomly 
selected for placement in the table as well as to have 
auto-incrementing fields which use characters as well as numerals, 
e.g. Nv21-a, Nv22-a, etc.

Note that this product is highly biased towards UK users.
If there is enough interest in this product, I will provide a much
more comprehensive version which will allow international settings as
well, e.g. US dates, US cities and States, etc. I will also allow
entries to be randomly selected from existing tables - the current
version requires that the user types in a list of choices.

I would very much like to hear from anyone who finds this product
useful, and I particularly welcome any suggestions for improvement.
 

Bill Marshall, 100602,3074


INSTALLATION

The Automatic Record Generator is supplied as a library file (arg.mda)

To install it, copy it to your Access directory.

Next, find the file MSACC20.INI and edit it. This file will probably
be in your c:\windows directory. 

You need to add a line to the [Menu Add-Ins] section, i.e.

[Menu Add-Ins]
Automatic Record Generator==xfn_systemstart()


You also need to add a line to the [Libraries] section, i.e.

[Libraries]
ARG.MDA=rw


These new lines can simply be added to the end of each existing list in
the appropriate section. Next time you start Access, the ARG should be
available from the Add-Ins option in the File menu.

That's it!