How can i specify one record within one field? say under Field: House Number, Record 1: 17 what I am trying to do is compare a value in a edit with another value stored in a table. ideal syntax: begin if (Edit1.Text > {the missing statement}) then ShowMessage('Number is correct!');

Use the dataset 'FieldByName' to get the value from column name:    

if (Edit1.Text > Query1.FieldByName('myCol').AsString) then
  ShowMessage('Number is correct!');

That will only specify the field column, but that the specific record i need. say i have a field column called 'Grade A' and with the following record Maths : 78 Art : 75 Music : 70 and I want: begin if (Edit1.Text > {compare with Column Grade A/ Row Maths = 78}) then ShowMessage('Number is correct!'); Can i do that?

I don't know if your data like :    

'NO'    'Grade A'       'xxx'
-------------------------------
'1'     'Maths : 78'    ....
'2'     'Art : 75'      ....
'3'     'Music : 70'    ....
'4'      .......        ....

If you want to get the data from column 'Grade A', you can use the Locate function the the Recode and get the grade with RightStr function (if all the grade data is 2 digits number)

procedure TForm1.Button3Click(Sender: TObject);
var
  FData: Integer;
begin
  if Table1.Locate('GradeA', 'Maths', [loPartialKey]) then
  begin
    FData := StrToInt(RightStr(Table1.FieldByName('GradeA').AsString,2));
  end;
end;

procedure TForm1.Button3Click(Sender: TObject);var FData: Integer;begin if Table1.Locate('GradeA', 'Maths', [loPartialKey]) then begin FData := StrToInt(RightStr(Table1.FieldByName('GradeA').AsString,2)); end;end; I didn't understand what u did here. My table look like this: Subject Name/ Grade A/ Grade B// ___________________________________________________ Maths 78 68 Art 75 60 What I am trying to do is to work out the Exam grades automatically, by entering a mark, say I enter Subject: Maths and Marks: 80 but I don't know how to do is the syntax comparing the mark I entered with Maths (Row), Grade A (Column) please say so if I didn't explain it clearly this is really really hard to do i think, because different subject have different grade boundries, if they are all the same, i can just compare the mark with a number Plz help me

Subject Name/    Grade A/    Grade B//
___________________________________________________
Maths               78          68
Art                 75          60

OK, let's see how to get the grade.

Function getDataFromSubjnGrade(Subj, Grade: String): Integer;
begin
  if Table1.Locate('Subject Name', Subj, []) then
  begin
    FData := Table1.FieldByName(Grade).AsInteger);
  end;
end;

But this is not a good table schema if you want to distinct student grade. The better way is:

Subject Name/pk    Grade/pk    upperBound/    lowerBound/
__________________________________________________________
Maths                A            100           78
Maths                B             77           68
Art                  A            100           75 
Art                  B             74           60