COnverting fileds to records

[Chris Wood]

In order to supply data to a client in his required format I need to take data from my master database and create a new file in which each piece of data is a separate record.

So in the master database lets say there are 100 records each made up of field 1, field 2, field 3, field 4.

In the separate file I need to create four new records for each field in each record in the master file, so I will end up with 400 records.

I would appreciate help

Regards, Chris

[BobWeaver]

Are you sending this data as a Filemaker file, or are you exporting it to a text file?

If you are exporting it, you can do some formatting to put line breaks between fields so that they become separate records in the output file.

If you are sending a Filemaker file, then the easiest way is to create a blank file with the correct fields and then make a script in it that does 4 imports. Suppose you are trying to put Field1, Field2, Field 3 and Field4 from one record into FieldExport in 4 separate records.

So, your first import would have this order:

Field1 -> FieldExport

The second import would have this order:

Field2 -> FieldExport

The third:

Field3 -> FieldExport

The fourth:

Field4 -> FieldExport

You will end up with four new records for every original record. You can of course import data into other fields at the same time as well.

[Chris Wood]

These both look like nice simple solutions. I will have a play with them both tomorrow.

Many thanks for the quick response.

Chris

[Chris Wood]

Bob,

Bob

I've had a play with your suggestions and while they both work, you may see from the following why I dont think they are the real solution.

Let me start st the begining:

We have 7 different, but similar FmPro v5 databases, one for each of 7 different types of machine (products). Each database contains up to 60 individual fields of data (attributes) for up to 200 separate records (models).

Client wants data from us in an Access database. He requires a table where each record is made up of a single field of data (attribute) plus 3 tags to identify the "Product" "Model" and "Attribute". Because the data is constantly changing we then need to have a system of supplying updated information every quarter.

Up to now I have managed our databases quite easily; I am now geting out of my depth.

To supply the data as a one time shot to start the system is not so bad, I can export data and add the tags, manipulate as required and populate the Access database. The problem comes in finding a semi-automatic method that my colleague can use to update the information.

It is the shear volume of fields/records/databases that creates the problem.

Is this all too much for Filemaker/this forum/me?

Regards,

Chris

[BobWeaver]

You can script either of the solutions that I mentioned so that the user only has to click a button to generate the export file.

However, from what you have described, it sounds to me that you should be getting rid of all the attribute fields and creating a related attributes line items file, where each record would have a Product, Model and Attribute field. This is much easier to maintain in the long run. If you need to add different attributes in the future, it's simply a matter of adding some lines item to the database. In it's existing form you would have to create new fields to do this.