listing relations in a repeating field

[Jon Thompson]

I have a database I a rewriting in v7, which is allowing me to eliminate many intermediate databases and scripts due to the ability to do less than/greater than relationships.

However, I have a many to many complex relationship to the class database (eligible classes) that I want to invalidate the user if their record is in another many to many database (enrolled classes). The way I was thinking of doing this is to place a record for each studentID that is in enrolled classes into a repeating field in the class database, then adding another line to the eligible classes relation that eliminates that class if the student is listed. I would like to do this on the fly, but if I need to do it when I add/remove the student from the class, it would be acceptable.

Oh how I wish that FM could define a relationship based on the data in another relationship. Then this could be simple.

Version: v7.x

Platform: Mac OS X Panther

[CyborgSam]

Repeating fields do not work correctly in relationships. Only the first repetition is related.

I'll echo many folks' advice here: don't use repeating fields. They are a remnant of FileMaker from before it was relational. They have very limited use in today's versions.

[Jon Thompson]

actually, in 7, repeating fields are _all_ relational.

I figured out my solution. First I created a layout with the repeating field, then upon adding a student to the class, I entered their studentID into the roster using a script that loops through the repeating fields. Finally I added a relation item that removes the individual if they are listed in the roster.

Not as clean as a SQL database would have been, but I suppose it will do.

On a side note: It appears that FMP7 automagically freezes the window if you go to a layout and return to the original layout without allowing the user to enter information.

[bruceR]

Listen to Sam. Forget the repeats. This isn't even good practice for a Filemaker 3 database, let alone Filemaker 7. You can't report on repeats, you can't select on them, etc. They have their uses, but this isn't one of them.

[Vaughan]

It's twelve months (or more) down the track when you can't work out how to get a particular report to work... that's when you realise it's been done wrong.