FINDING RECORDS in Another File

[Mike-LI-NY]

In FILE-A I have 2 fields and a button.

Ideally, when I click the button, I'd like for it to look in a FILE-B for every record that matches the same as fields 1 & 2, and then spit it out in a report in FILE-A.

How can I accomplish this and what scripts do I need to make? I'm new to scripting so I might need some help with that too... Any ideas?

Thanks so much!

[ESpringer]

I don't think you need scripts at all. What you need is a relation and a portal, I suspect. First, create a calculation field that gives you a concatenation of your two fields in file A:

cConcat = field1&"_"&field2

Make a similar calculation field for file B. (Make both calculations return "Text" data type)

Now, you can build a relation between file1 and file2: Define the relation so that cConcat in A matches cConcat in B.

Now, you can build a *portal* in a File A layout that *always* shows whatever fields you want from these related records, and you can format the rows in any way you like. You can also do calculations *in* the A database that summarize facts about the related B info...

Is there a reason why you want to fool around with scripts to do this?

[Mike-LI-NY]

Well no - but I have tons of crieteria in FILE A that I want to be able to search FILE B for by pushing a button and having it display. So I was going to automate it. I've gotten it to the point where I'm running an external find script and the results are appearing in File B, but I"m just having trouble with the data showing through the portal in FILE A.

Any suggestions?

[ESpringer]

Do these two files have very similar sets of fields then? If you don't mind discussing your situation more specifically, it might be interesting to see whether you really need *TWO* databases at all...

Of course, you could get a script to "tag" all the records in file B with 1, and have a relationship between a Constant field in A (which always shows 1) and anything with 1 in B's tag field.

But I'd be wary of that, because if you ever expand your solution to multiple-users, the tag field could be accessed by multiple users interfering with each other... I'd hold out for the portal solution... if you're willing to get into more detail.