i was trying to do a script that searches for text strings that contain certain character. for example if i want to find if a field contains an email address how can i do the comparison:

[if f3 "contains" @]

how can i put this into a script...

any help will be appreciated..

You need to use the "PatternCount" step. This is a great step for finding any text you want. You can anter the text - for example "@" to find emails so it would look something like this in a script: (or you could define a calculation field to filter anything you want)

-----

If

PatternCount(F3; "@")>0

End if

-----

now you would have to decide what should happen if there is a "@" present. I use this trick for filtering emails, but also use PatternCount with ".com" ".de" and also domain names etc for sorting emails. Remember, you can also use a field name instead of text, so for example:

PatternCount(F3;F4)>0

PatternCount is one of the most versitile steps. You should invest some time with this. It's explained in the FMP help file, but the basic format is:

PatternCount (Where should it look;What it should look for)it then tels you how many times it found it

Remember, your seperators are maybe different to mine ";"

PS: the other cool thing about PatternCount is that it can find returns or empty spaces, too

Hope this helps,

Rigsby

thanks Rigsby, that worked out...

cheers