Copy/import a table without recreating fields?

[Randal]

Is it possible to either copy a table (with or without the data) within the same database or to import table data to a new table without having to retype/define every field again?

[David Holmberg]

I'm quite sure it's not possible but I find it hard to understand why you would want to do this.

You can add multiple occurenses of the same table by using the relationship graph.

File > Define Database > relationships

Maybe this is what you want?

[Søren Dyhr]

This is almost correct what David says, with one exception "Import between tables" to allow the splitting of repeating fields into separate records.

But is it a particular hard task to recreate a fairly well normalized structure??? no! - since a table having a lot of fields in one table isn't particular normalized - even though calcfields keeps creaping on you as a cheep coat as soon you lack the attention - lets call it the speadsheet syndrome.

Lets talk of the the nature of the table involved, the relations and the scripting involved - at first sight does it look like you're barking up the wrong tree - especially the fieldnumbers could be turned otherwise, if you pay attention to the reasoning behind this movie:

http://previews.filemakermagazine.com/videos/513/DataTagging_full.mov

--sd

[pezagency]

Actually, I'm looking for an answer on this one as well...

FM "locks" tables into a database structure, which means that if you create a table in one database, you can't use it in another database. Creating references to other tables in other databases is *not* the same thing.

It seems the only way to create tables in FMP is manually. That's really lame.

So I'll ask the same question again, since it hasn't been answered:

Is there a way to copy a table structure from one database to the other?

[Ender]

Is there a way to copy a table structure from one database to the other?

You can use a third party tool like FM Robot or FM Migrator. But other than for consolidating files, I don't see a good reason to copy tables. It's usually not a good structure to have multiple similar copies of the same table within a file. I think this is what David was getting at.