automatcly add data to value list/repeating field?

[matthewday]

Is it possible to define a calculation (or script) that finds records based on a given search criteria and then automatically pastes the results from one field into another field that is repeating? I have a database of 500 individuals that can be grouped into about 300 families according to their family id number. I want to divide the families into two categories (let's say "A" and "Z"). The category to which any given family belongs is based on information only found in the head-parent (be it the mother or father)- which makes it very difficult to apply the category to the children. The only way I can think of applying the same category to the children is to create a repeating field (which holds the same values in all records in the database) that contains all of the family id numbers for category "A"; and then create a calculation that compares these family id numbers against those for the children. If there is a match the child belongs to category "A"; if not, they belong to category "Z". Doing this manually is possible but time consuming and will require constant updating. Can I do it automatically?

[LiveOak]

Please don't use repeating fields.

Create fields:

ParentCategory (text or number)

ChildFamilyID (text or number, indexed)

Find just the parent records and replace ParentCategory with the appropriate value. Find just the child records and replace ChildFamilyID with FamilyID.

Create a self-relationship matching ChildFamilyID to FamilyID, call it ParentRel.

The Child records now have a category by using the field ParentRel::ParentCategory.

-bd

[LaRetta]

What a perfect example of when to use an alias. I tend to make things too complex! Thanks for that tid-bit!