Title
Overkill or not?
Post
I have a solution that makes archives of information related to item we sell. Let’s say the archive name is teapot, we will give the archive record the same name. The information is in a table ITEMS::, the archives are also in their own table called ARCHIVES::. Up til now I have been creating scripts that create variables, for example ITEMS::item_name = $inm and then use the set the field script step and write it to ARCHIVES::archive_name. Would it make better sense just to use a calculation that sets ARCHIVES::archive_name = ITEMS::item_name?
Copied over from what?
This lack of detail is why I have been confused about what you are doing.
If there is no relationship linking the target record to the source record, then using a variable is one of several standard methods for copying over the data. If there is a valid relationship linking the two records, then Set Field can do it all in one step, but only if that relationship is in place.
Other methods for moving data from one place to another:
Set a global field to the value. (This is how we did it before we had variables.)
Pass the data in a script parameter (and you can put multiple data items in a single parameter.)
Copy to the clipboard, paste from the clip board. (Don't use this method unless you have no alternative as the other options keep data copied by the user to the clipboard intact. This method is useful for copying data to/from a different application or, In versions older than version 13, with "copy all records" to quickly build a return separated list of values from a found set of records.)