I'm lost in the help files...can't find the right function (or method)...

How do I do i get All the values of a field from an external file without a relationship?.

I wanna do stuff like finding the next value in external_field that is bigger than value x.

/Tobias

How do you propose to extract external data without a relationship?

Well, I dunno. Thats why I am asking.

Something like:

getfielddata(dbase,field)

(I know thats not the name of the function but thats what I want to do.)

The reason is:

I don't store any data in my "main" file.

I have a current_id field in the main file and the relations to other files depend on this.

I want to change the value of this (by scripts) but only to values that exist in a field(all rows) of another file.

Problem is I can't find a way to check if a value exists in the other file.

I want to do this without changing the other file at all.

( I come from SQL so my logic is not really FM logic)

/T

Would you be averse to creating a value list in your other files that's defined by the field for which you are searching? If not, you could then create a calculation field in your master file that uses the ValueListItems( externaldb, externalValueListName) (unindexed so it will auto-update) function, and run a script to do a Patterncount( calcfield, "

A value list in other file create I will.

Queue I thank.

Thanks for the help....

Though as always... it resulted in more questions...

Patterncount( calcfield, "

Ah, yes, it was too early in the morning/late at night for me. I forgot that little detail. Sorry about that, but glad you were quick enough to pick up on that yourself.

If your valuelist is based on a numeric field, then ValueListItems gives you the sorted index of that field, i.e. the maximum value SHOULD be equal to the final value in the field, I would think. If your value is not numeric, then I'm not quite sure what you mean by maximum value.

Yes, it's numeric values.

But how do I get the last ValueList Item?

/T

First, I'd change the calcfield to be "

The simpliest method.

Middlewords(yourfield, PatternCount( calcfield, "

I knew there was an easier way, just didn't take the time to figure it out. Although in this case I think it would be MiddleWords( calcfield, PatternCount( calcfield, "

Well,

I didn't figured it out my own Queue. This is that Aussie's champ idea, you know who I'm refering to

Yes, as you added the CR, this one would work.