Empty fields that aren't

[AndyD]

FileMaker 5.5, Windows. I've done a lot of relations in a very complex set of tables, but this REALLY puzzles me. I have a simple table (X) of news items (id, headline, text) where the item can have several clasifications (eg to appear in lists A and B and D). So I hold the id and the classifications in a related table (Y). That way I can create a list file out of Y containing items repeated by each classification to use in a web-based MySQL database. Simple. Result is:

Id class

1 A

1 B

1 D

2 A

etc.

To make this more useful I have a portal to the first table so I can see the headline:

Id Headline class

1 text A

2 text B

etc.

EASY!

Then I found my export file (id, headline, class) was producing occasional blank lines in the middle. What I didn't expect was that when I looked for blank records in Y (Find, "=" in the "headline" portal field) that it was finding records WITH headlines (yes, the ones exported above the blank lines).

How, when I Find empty ("=") can it return non-empty results? I can't repair these records by overtyping them (there are no spurious returns or tabs), and when I recreate them the problem comes back! The relationship is sound, the records are so simple (and I have parallels elsewhere that have never caused a problem). If the Headline contains "test" I can find it by searching for "test". If I find on "test" AND omit "=" (empty) I get nothing.

Serious clues would be a real help here; I'm totally foxed.

[AndyD]

Hey, how about this?

If my Id (indexed text field) is "015410603" (OK, it means something special to me) I get the problem on the record: there appears to be this "ghost" empty record. But 015410602 or 015410604 and there is no problem. Why might these numbers be special?

AndyD

[-Queue-]

It sounds as if you are searching for empty fields in your portal, meaning any related records with empty fields, which will display records in the current file based on the related found set in the other file. Is this really what you want to do?

[AndyD]

Well, yes; and indeed I do find genuine records with an id and an empty headline (they're OK, I know about them!). The real puzzle (my latter post) is that if I find one of these ghosting records (ie what I can see, and the empty shadow I can't) and alter the id slightly in all related tables, the ghosting stops. It's as if certain numbers are causing the problem -- but I can't find a pattern. Can you see anything special about these numbers??

026280403

25850402

015410603

AndyD

[AndyD]

OK; Your clue was right, something had to be there. Result of not setting my portal to allow deletion of portal records (woops!) so class changes left unclassified records etc. using same ids

Sorted, thanks.

[-Queue-]

No problem. Glad you got it all figured out.