Duplicating Tables in a Database File

[CaelC]

I can't figure out how to duplicate a table inside a DB file. A minor annoyance but is there a way to do it? I don't want to have a to recreate all my basic fields in every table (date_modified, date_created, uid, etc. etc.) It would save a little time to be able to duplicate a template table as many times as needed and then start adding the unique fields to each table.

Can this be done in 7?

Cael.

Version: v7.x

Platform: Mac OS X Panther

[BruceJ]

I called tech support about this and they said we are out of luck. I suppose you could shell out $400 for developer and create some custom calcs to make it a little easier.

[rivet]

wow, now that you mention it, what an oversight. Having a template table is a major concern in development time. I am getting the feeling that FMP7 will have to wait until 7.5 when some of these concerns are resolved.

[dkemme]

I wonder if millenium's RobotFM product will accomplish this?

[mscholtz]

But have y'all looked at the ODBC page within FM7 help?

It seems that the FM7 ODBC will have support for CREATE TABLE queries (among many other SQL statements that were unsupported under v5/6). That seems to mean that (if you're on Win) you could conceivably write ODBC routines to create your tables, then re-use them as much as necessary.

I've seen at least one new commercial product advertised that seems to intend to take advantage of this (to convert MSAccess tables to FM7)

I'd very very surprised if you'd be able to do more than create basic field types, not calcs, auto-enters, validation, etc. I'd love to be proven wrong.

The trial version doesn't seem to come with the ODBC driver, so I can't test any of this.

Matthew

[bruceR]

I see where you read that but I think you are misinterpreting it. I think they are saying that you can execute those commands on data sources Filemaker is using.

[mscholtz]

I don't think I misinterpreted it, although I completely understand your unwillingness to believe me.

I'm looking at the help topic titled "ODBC and JDBC support in FileMaker Pro", just after the sentence that reads "Queries to a FileMaker Pro data source can include the following SQL statements and constructs".

Also check this out:

http://www.fmpro.org/news/195418540394/

which is what got me looking at this in the first place.

As I said in my first post though, I can't at all vouch for whether or how well it works.

I'd love to hear from anyone who has actually tried working with the new ODBC functionality. There's apparently further docs on this on the install CD, which I don't have since I'm still on trial version.