Rikk_2004

That looks interesting, and actually we do have advanced now i should update my profile, we recently got it.

Sort of like pattern count. if the file name is 20070510_record.pdf it would know that _ is the first non numeric character and it is the 9th character in the string.

All the nested substitute function in james's post scare me! Id like to try the use the left(filter) approach. with that somehow also return the character value# of the string somehow?

we need a way to search a string for the first non numeric character in a string. can someone help find the proper method to do that in FMP?

So Close. This functionality works but the InsertFile script does not work from a browser.. This database will be an intranet databse, editable from a browser, and I am hoping to find a way to do exactly this but have it work from a browser... any other ideas?

That works exactly! Thank you. we need to have path and file seperately in order to pass arguements to other visual basic custom functions we use. you helped me so very much. thank you.

YES. Your parse gives me the path (which is the second line of the GetAsText. How do i get the file Name which is the first line?

Yes, sorry... You are right actually. the output has the file: then the filename and then filewin:/ which almost gets me there! I just have to figure out how to parse those two into seperate fields when the path will always be different lengths and such. I have never used the parsing before. I will try your example next.

This may be some progress..... When i insert file(as opposed to insert picture) in a container, and then when i use GetAsText ( container::selectedfile) that function returns: size:1442,1050 image:sirriusopen_rev2_0001.tga imagewin:/G:/Sirrius/shots/SirriusOpen/reference/sirriusopen_rev2_0001.tga Which is very very close! Thank you. But now i need to either PARSE that ouput some how to dump just the path (In this case path would be = "G:/Sirrius/shots/SirriusOpen/reference/" and filename = "sirriusopen_rev2_0001.tga" does that make sense? thank you for your help! Really.... :)

That is very interesting. I was in fact use insert picture. Insert file i will try and get back to you.

Not exactly. When you use a container to store only a reference, every time you go to that record, it goes oout and rechecks the reference. And if it is an 8 meg image file it takes forever to check that reference. if ref only is NOT CHECKED, then it makes a small thumbnail of the larger image in the database's container, and then the database updates in almost real time. it is when you reference only an image in a container that we see a huge speed hit. Unless you know of a way to reference a file in a container and NOT show the image. Maybe that would be faster.

thanks for the help... From what i tried, this only returns the file name not path, unless you use "Use Only Reference to file" and then it will in fact return the file size, file path with file name. But that is not an option. these files are 8 meg images in some cases. We do not want to link reference only to them, because then every time you go to that record it takes 15 seconds to load the ref and display the record. Way to slow. or are you thinking of another way?

actually, although this is close, because this does store the path into a field, but this just scans a folder and dumps the contents of the entire folder. I would also need to be able to select a file, not just a folder, and have the path to the file be in one field and the file name you selected in another field. any takers?

But how do i point to the file? Get(filepath) of what? That function seems to only return the path to the location of your database file. (the fp7 file) that is not where we save all of the work we will be tracking.

Seriously, this script looks like my best bet, but i do not know how to get this functionality into one of my databases... can someone walk me through it?