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?

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

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

Try searching for g*

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

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

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

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.

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

Ignore my moronicity.

Would this work?

Left(LeftWords( Name, 1 ), 1)

LaRetta

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]

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

[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

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

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?

Try ==g*

Excellent Vaughan.

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

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

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.

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!

Yeah.

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