Getting the value of one digit in a text string

[picnichouse]

Hi,

I'm trying to do a calculation like this:

If the first letter of a text field = "A", this field equals X. If the first letter of a text field = B, this field equals Y.

And so on.

How do I tell filemaker to look for the value of a particular digit?

Thanks!

Andrew

FileMaker Version: 7

Platform: Mac OS X Panther

[Damocles]

Here's the quick and inelegant answer to your first question.

TextField=Text

OtherField= Calculation

Case(

Left(TextField,1)="A","X",

Left(TextField,1)="B","Y",

"Whatever the field will equal if none of the conditions are met")

As for the second question:

How do I tell filemaker to look for the value of a particular digit?

Check the forum for the Middle, Left, and Right functions. They will pick whichever letter you designate and return that value. I'd suggest the "Quick Parsing Tutorial" by Ugo Di Luca. It will likely answer some of your questions in better detail.

Paul

[picnichouse]

Thanks very much Paul, exactly what I was looking for!

[-Queue-]

A more efficient solution, if you're wanting to use the entire alphabet, would be to use

Middle( "XYZABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVW", Position( "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ", gLetter, 0, 1 ), 1 )