Creating New Table with Script

July 26, 200421 yr

Hey all,

After a long data analysis haul, we're finally ready to move all this extraneous data into FileMaker 7. The database promises to be very helpful yet very complex, and this being the first real day of database design, the problems are starting to crop up.

What I need is a script that will allow me to create a new table, name it, create fields within it, and so forth. The table name and field names will have to be created on the fly (dynamically) and combined with static text.

Example: I need to create a new table for item 12345. The table would need to be named "12345|ProductReliability" and the fields within it would need to be "12345|ProductReliability|TestDate", "12345|ProductReliability|TestScore", and "12345|ProductReliability|AnalysisCycle". All I would have to enter is the item number (12345) and it would go ahead and create the table and fields for me (anything other than the 12345 part of a name is static).

I also need a script to automatically import Excel spreadsheets (at worst, import CSVs or TDFs, which I can export from Excel).

I really appreciate any help anyone can give me. I've only got two weeks to complete this job, and we've got a schema...I'm just uneducated in how to do some things (I'm a programmer, so moving from MySQL to FileMaker was like "whoa...where'd my ODBC and ADO.NET go?").

Thanks a lot,

Aviosity

July 27, 200421 yr

Hi,

As I guess you've concluded, there is no native support for scripted/automated creation of tables or fields within FileMaker 7. So to do what you have described you are going to have to look at third party products which provide extended capability of this kind.

Two different approaches that you might find worthy of investigation are:

FMPro Migrator from .com solutions:

http://www.fmpromigrator.com/

FMRobot from NMCI:

http://www.newmillennium.com

Both products are worth knowing about for other reasons, but may also give you an angle on your current dilemma.