Can anybody help me any further with this? I'm begging here. This is a deal breaker with my client.

I have a number of attributes -- all with different field lengths. If I cannot assign a field length at the time I set up the product, how am I supposed to know what to test for when the form is processed?

I have no idea how to solve this and I'm going to be in pretty deep trouble if I can't. My client cannot understand how such a simple thing is so difficult to implement.

Go ahead and call me a stupid idiot for not knowing this. As long as you spell the solution out to me in terms I can understand, I will take your abuse gratefully.