I'm looking for a calculation to use as a flag for any letters/characters that aren't approved for use in a spefic field; the approved characters are: dMmy/.-  ...and those characters can appear in any order and in any number...so that negates using PatternCount unless I make a multi-line case statement using PatternCount for each approved character, but that sounds klunky. I also tried using Filter as part of an equation but I couldn't get it to work.

Your help would be appreciated. Thanks!

You can use filter, but you'll need to compare it to the original string to see if there's a difference. In the filter function, you specify all the characters you allow. You can compare the result of the filter function to see if any characters have been removed.

like so: If( string = filter( string; "dMm/.-" ); "ok"; "not ok" )

Hi TeacherED,

Try

Substitute (   YourTextField ;   ["d"; ""];   ["M"; ""];   ["m"; ""];   ["y"; ""];   ["/"; ""];   ["."; ""];   ["-"; ""] )

HTH

Lee

TeacherEd, try

Let(
~finder = Substitute (   YourTextField ;   ["d"; "§"];   ["M"; "§"];   ["m"; "§"];   ["y"; "§"];   ["/"; "§"];   ["."; "§"];   ["-"; "§"] ); 
If(length(YourTextField) > PatternCount(~finder; "§"); "Error Message"; YourTextField)
)

§ is option-5 on a Mac; you can use any character you are certain will not appear in YourTextField.

Edited December 3, 20178 yr by doughemi

Great stuff! Thank you all for your help!