perform a find within a find

[***ANDY***]

Dear All,

how can I perform a find within a set of found records?

What I'd like to do is find duplicate customer names within a set of already found records.

Thanks,

Andy

[LiveOak]

In FM6 & FM7 you can perform a find and establish a found set, enter find mode again and then perform a second find that will "constrain" the current found set. This can be done manually using the Requests Menu to execute the "Constrain Found Set" operation or scripted in ScriptMaker. In FM5, you must build the composite find request equivalent to the find + constrained find.

The duplicate part on names gets tricky. The "!" character will find duplicate entries within a single field. As to names, are Rob Smith/Robert Smith/Bob Smith duplicates? If you create a composite field, say FirstName & LastName, you can peform a "!" search for EXACT duplicates within this composite field.

-bd

[***ANDY***]

Thank you for your answer!

My database exists of motorcycle tour participants. Everyone that rides a bike has a separate record. Now it is possible that there are two guys that each ride a bike but stay in the same hotel room. What I get in my first find e.g. is this when I look up the participants for a certain tour:

1. find: Bob Miller and Bert Smith

2. find: Bert Smith and Bob Miller

Both participants have their own individual record each with a reference that one shares the room with the other.

Above found records now need to be sent to the hotel as a rooming list but for the hotel it would look like there are 2 rooms where there is really only one room.

I need to eliminate either one of the finds but I don't know how. Above solution (which I have no idea of how to accomplish yet in fm5...) sounds logical but I don't have FM6 or FM7 to compare with and check how the constrained find works.

If it's better understandable for you I can send you my files.

Andy

[LiveOak]

What you need is some concept of a room, either in a separate table with relationships to the people in the room or by marking the individuals as both in "Room 1". In the first case you can print the rooms needed list from the "Rooms" table. In the second case, you could print the list of rooms needed as a subsummary by room. This would eliminate the duplicated entries on the room list.

-bd

[***ANDY***]

Sorry for my delayed answer, I just got back from a business trip.

how about if I export the found records into a new fp5 database and then perform a new search for duplicates?

Andy