Find on first character

[Eliz309]

I would like to find all of the records that start with the letter G. I have tried =G, "G", "=G", ==G, etc. but nothing is working. Can someone help?

[BobWeaver]

Try G by itself without the equals sign, and without the quotes.

[Lee Smith]

Hi bob, wouldn't this give you the records for all files that contain a "G" in them, including words like filing?

What I would do instead, is to create a calculation field based on the your current field

Call it something like c_FirstLetter, with a text result,

Left(YourCurrentFIeld, 1)

then do your search in it.

HTH

Lee

[Vaughan]

Try searching for g*

[-Queue-]

That won't work either. It will find any words that start with g, not only the first.

[DanBrill]

I think Bob's first answer is right, but there maybe more here than meets the eye. I just stumbled on something interesting while trying to figure this out. If I search FirstName for B it returns all the first names that start with B. Cool. This is what Martard was looking for.

I also have a calc field: Name = LastName & ", " & FirstName. In Name I Find for B and it returns all the records where either First or Last start with B.

Is this a hidden feature, or just news to me?

Dan

[DanBrill]

Oh wait, now I understand Queue's comment. In the words of Gilda Radner, 'never mind.'

[-Queue-]

I tried to be clever and have two find requests, the first with g* and the second omitting *g. But that didn't work. It did, however, shrink my found set by 400 records. I haven't figured out the difference in the two yet.

[-Queue-]

Oh, duh. That omitted any -ing words, etc.

Ignore my moronicity.

[LaRetta]

Would this work?

Left(LeftWords( Name, 1 ), 1)

LaRetta

[-Queue-]

For a calculation field, yes. For an on-the-fly find, no.

However, this does seem to work.

Two requests:

1. g*

2. * & " g" [Omit]

[LaRetta]

Hi Queue!

What I was envisioning is:

Go To Field [Name]

Enter Find Mode[Pause] let user type a letter in Name field

Set Field [Calculation, NameField]

Perform Find [Replace Found Set]

I just got too excited to think of explaining it.

LaRetta

[Lee Smith]

Hi -queue-

Very ingenus, but it will breaks on things like .gif

For a calculation field, yes. For an on-the-fly find, no.

I'm not so sure that this was suppose to be a on-the-fly find, but rather a way to find the first initials, in this case a "G", so that is why I posted the calculation approach.

Sorry, LoRetta, you weren't first.

Lee

[-Queue-]

Hmm. What about " g" [Omit] as the second request?

[-Queue-]

Err, that wouldn't work. George Gomez would get skipped.

It seems like this would almost have to be a find on a calculation field. I can't think of any way to only retrieve the first letter without excluding extra ones that you would want to find.

[LaRetta]

I meant that the User can search their regular field (they don't need to know they're actually searching a calculation) and the calculation doesn't need to be displayed. Your calc is certainly better, Lee! But I just got excited about using it to search a calculation from data entered in a regular field 'on-the-fly' as Queue put it. And I didn't think about the calc.

But it does work! Except you'd want to use Lee's calc as mine is redundant. I think it would be easier for Users than trying to remember all of the omits, symbols, etc, so I guess it depends upon what is wanted here.

LaRetta

[Ugo DI LUCA]

As FileMaker recognize the Alphabet order, If this was for full text fields only, then a 2 omit request

1. >h

2.<g

would also work, and still account for Georges Groove, which your requests would exclude.

But it would exclude G.T. OR g@, as they can't be evaluated

[Lee Smith]

Hi LaRetta,

It would be nice to be able to use RegEx in FileMaker Finds.

Than you would type

^g as your Find Request

Lee

[Ugo DI LUCA]

That was it Lee...

Sure would be quicker with a calc, but a 3 steps works

^g

<g Omit

>h Omit

Edited Nope. Only my Master DJ would make Maths with Text

[Lee Smith]

[color:"blue"] >That was it Lee...

^g

<g Omit

>h Omit

I don't understand? ^g shouldn't have made any difference.

I have tried all of your combinations, including the one you deleted, and none of them worked for me. At least it doesn't work on my version of FM 6

Lee

[Ugo DI LUCA]

The first 2 steps from my previous post should work (they are here on my version of 5.5), but the latest wasn't, which is why I said "Nope".

And definitely the calc option you suggested is the way to go

[ESpringer]

Gee, I don't think you want to use <g (or >g) omits, because then George Boole would be omitted. Any record with *any* initial letter under G gets left out. Really, it seems you want to search a calc field that captures only the first word of your data field... No?

[Vaughan]

Try ==g*

[Ugo DI LUCA]

Excellent Vaughan.

I was sure there was something "simple" existing...and working

[Lee Smith]

Hi Vaughan,

Excellent!

Is this documented somewhere, or did you discover it through trial and error like the rest of us were trying to do?

This is a keeper. You can add to this (i.e. ==get*) and find all of the records that the first three letters are get, thereby narrowing your search even more.

Thanks for the tip.

Lee

[Eliz309]

Vaughn,

This works great. I am new to Filemaker and I have a boss that has become anti FM, so quick and easy solutions are always a plus.

Thanks to you all for your help, I can definitely use all of the suggestions.

[-Queue-]

I thought I tried that last night, and it returned no records. Must have typoed or something. That's why I was messing with the omit second request step, because a single one wasn't giving me jack.

Anyway, thanks Vaughan!

[Ugo DI LUCA]

Yeah.

I must have got lost with all the combination I tried. Science is all what we needed. Eh Vaughan