Being that some of this is quite new to me, I have been struggling with a concept and would appreciate some input from you advanced programmers.

The whole concept of downloading a database to a recordset and doing data manipulation is quite nice, but I was thinking about a multiuser situation and wanted to present the following scenario for your comments:

Bob and Sue both actively update records in a database. It is a simple mailing list Database. They both arrive at 9:00am and have been entering/updating data all morning. Bob updates a record for John Smith and change John’s spelling to Jon. In the meanwhile (keep in mind this is all hypothetical), Sue has to change the same record for the same Mr. Smith record. Her change requires the zip code to be changed from 08088 to 08099. Having said that, since Bob and Sue both came in at the same time, and they both loaded the initial database into their recordsets at the same time, doesn’t that mean when Sue pulls up her version of the Smith record from the recordset for Mr. Smith that it will still show “John” instead of “Jon”? Additionally, when she saves the record with the new zip code, won’t it overwrite Bob’s previously saved record and chance it back to “John” from” Jon”?

I am thinking about this the wrong way, or am I missing something here, or is there a better approach relative to VB and recordsets?


In my old world of programming, we interacted directly with the database for each record. Thus we would find the record, lock it, update it, and unlock it, and move on.

Thanks again for your input.