How to find earliest Duplicates and delete them?

[JeffreyE]

Does anyone know a good way to test for both Date AND Time Modified and then delete the earlier Duplicates after an Import?

Thanks!

Jeffrey Ellis

[Vaughan]

In an unsorted database, the earliest records are at the "top."

Find the duplicates, then delete all but the last one.

[beltro]

Does the data that you are importing have date and time modified already or do you have it set up in FileMaker?

If you have it set up in FM it will depend entirely on how the data you brought in was sorted.

If the data already had date and time look at 10-13 of the 5.0 users guide. It gives you a basic example of how to find and delete duplicates. You would want to sort in descending order to keep the oldest.

Beltro

[KentL]

Make a calc field and set it to Status(CurrentRecordID). Since this is a permanent number, no matter what records have been added or deleted, the earliest records will have the lowest number. Sort by whatever criteria you need to look for the duplicates, but also sort secondary by this record id in decending order. The newest record for each set will be at the top. Run a standard script to delete duplicates, only the newest will remain. However, this will only work with if the originals have been left alone. Otherwise, sort by the unique field, then date descending, then time descending. The newest will be at the top.

[Arin]

what does a "standard script to delete duplicates" consist of?