Performing a logical NOT

[nutthick]

How do you perform a logical NOT? I'm trying to detect if data is present, so was thinking about putting 'NOT "?"' in a date field. Any ideas?

[Lee Smith]

Date Fields are tricky, sometimes requiring you put things in your finds in certain ways. The best way to figure this stuff out sometimes is to experiment. Your last question on this was about a script, so I'm not sure if you are needing a script step, or want to do a manual find.

If you use the = (equal sign) as suggested by Transpower in your question "I know this is simple, but I can find the answer ", it will find all records that are blank in that date field. If you want to find the reverse (i.e. only the ones with dates), then use the Omit button with your find for =.

If you mean something else, let us know.

This is pretty basic FileMaker Find information. I would recommend that you check out the FileMaker Manual, the Online Help, and then try doing some of basic finds.

Lee

[nutthick]

Thanks Lee. I've already been playing around with omit, but wasn't having any luck. Every time I included it the whole find would return nothing. I writing a script that performs a find based on 3 things:

1. An exact text match in a field (easy)

2. Data missing in a field (=)

3. Data present in a field (this question)

If you think omit is the way to go, I'll keep trying.

[Lee Smith]

I started to answer your question above about doing All 3 finds at once, but I want to be sure you know what the Omit does.

To find all records with data in a field you need to do this.

Go into Find Mode,

Go to the field and enter = and also click Omit button.

Perform Find

This will find all records that don't have data in that field, and then omit replaces the found set with the records that do have data in them. It like having a found set, and using the Show Omitted in the menu.

To do all three finds as described in your post, sounds like you would be finding all records. This is because there is a conflict between step 2 and step 3. So, there would be no records that would meet the 3 criteria's and so, the Omit would be returning all records.

Like I stated before. Do the request manually, and you should pick up on the problems.

HTH

Lee