count field 1 for duplicates and store count in another field

[cfso]

I hope I have posted this in the correct place.  I need to count field for matching contents and record the number of hits in another field.

I am sure that is very basic but I can not get around this.  Thanks in advance for any help..

[Fitch]

You may want to use the PatternCount or Position functions. Can you give an example of what you mean?

[comment]

Please explain in more detail what you're trying to do and also for what purpose - as there will very likely be more than one way to do it. For example, counting duplicates in the entire table is not exactly the same thing as counting duplicates in the current found set.

 

[cfso]

Thank you for the response.  Here is what my fields need to look like.

 

F1                         F2

Tom                       3

Paul                       1

Sandy                    2

Tom                       3

Jerry                      1

Tom                       3

Sandy                    2

 

I want to to look at the first record, in the file, and count how many there are in F1 and give results in F2.

i.e.  Tom appears in this column 3 times and Sandy 2 times and so on.  I tried to create another F3 and copied

the contents from F1 to F3 and tried to do a Count, but that did not work or at least the way I was trying it.

 

Thanks in advance for any ideas..

[bcooney]

Can you state your problem in a sentence? For example,  “As a sales manager, I need to see how many sales each representative has made for the selected quarter.”

We need to know if you’re summing records in the same table or constraining the found set in any way (by a time component or item category, perhaps).  Your example isn’t answering those questions and is too abstract. 

[cfso]

Sorry for not explaining well.  I have only one table with the one field.  I need to build a report that tells me

how many times "Tom"'s name appears in that field then tell me how many "Paul"'s there are, as the next records reflects.

Thanks

[bcooney]

Can you tell us real data points? Unless, you’re truly tracking “Paul”. 

[cfso]

Sorry I do not know how to explain any better.  Thanks for your help.

[comment]

1 hour ago, cfso said:

I need to build a report that tells me

how many times "Tom"'s name appears in that field then tell me how many "Paul"'s there

The simplest method to do this is to define a summary field as Count of [ YourNameField ] (or any other field that cannot be empty, such as an auto-entered serial number).

For your report, use a layout that has a sub-summary part by YourNameField and no body part. Place both YourNameField and the summary field in this part.

To produce the report, go to the report layout, show all records (or find the records you want to summarize) and sort them by YourNameField. Using your example, the report should look something like this:

Jerry     1
------------
Paul      1
------------
Sandy     2
------------
Tom       3

 

[cfso]

This is what I was hoping to solve in Filemaker.   In my example of data...

A                            B                        C

Tom                       Tom                   3

Paul                       Paul                   1

Sandy                    Sandy               2

Tom                       Tom                   3

Jerry                      Jerry                 1

Tom                       Tom                   3

Sandy                    Sandy                2 

If can do this in excel, I place a command in the first field column in cell C1 like CountIF(A:A,B1)

it will count how many are there.  So the command is CountIF([cells to scan],[what you are searching for ie contents of cell B1]).

Column A and B data are the exact same data.  Hope this helps, further.

[comment]

11 hours ago, cfso said:

Hope this helps, further.

Actually, it does not. You said you wanted to produce a report showing the count of each name, and I gave you the simplest way to achieve that. Earlier I said there will very likely be more than one way to produce the same (or similar) result - and I was not wrong. However, these ways are more complex than the one I suggested and require more resources. Unless you explain why the simple way is not suitable for your purpose, I see no reason to spend time and effort  providing alternatives.

 

[cfso]

I am sorry.  I feel you have taken offense to my posting.  I am looking for help to accomplish my first posting where I wanted

to write the results into another field so I can run a report to finish my goal.  I love filemaker and I use it over Excel.  Excel and

Filemaker both have some limitations, and that is ok.  Again, I am sorry for upsetting you, that was never my goal.  I understand

your reaction.  Thank you.

[bcooney]

Can you upload a sample of the report you want to produce?