search for null value(s) in check boxes

[Ginna Moore]

Hello all

first time poster. I teach FileMaker Pro 6.0 and a student asked a question that I'm having a little trouble answering.

Is there a way to do a find for blank values in check boxes?

thanks in advanced.

[QuinTech]

Hi, Ginna, and welcome to the Forums!

You're probably aware that, if you have a plain text field with no check boxes, entering just = will find all records that have no content in that field. To enter an equals sign into a checkbox, copy the equals sign from another field, or Notepad, or whatever, then right-click your checkbox field (in Find Mode, of course) and select "Paste unformatted text." You won't see it, but this causes the contents of the field to become =.

Execute your search and you've got it.

HTH,

Jerry

[Fenton]

Yes, but it's awkward. If it's a Boolean value list, 1 or nothing, then you can Find for 1, with Omit. If it's a value list with several values, you can find with a script, setting the field to "=" (blank). But you can't do that manually.

If it's a user manual search, you can create a calculation field which evaluates to 1 if the checkbox field is empty (evaluate always). Then you can format that as a Boolean checkbox, and Find for 1 in that field. Label it somehow. A dedicated Find layout would help here.

Alternatively, just put the "checkbox" field on the dedicated layout as a plain field. That works well for finding 1 particular value, or blank, "=". But it doesn't work that well for finding multiple values; though the user can type in multiple space-separated values for an AND find, if they know to do that. You are basically just searching in a text field.

[Oldfogey]

Fenton, There are three (not two) possible values in a Boolean checkbox field - 1, 0 and nothing. Not to mention 1 [para] 0 and 0 [para] 1 or 0 [para] 0, etc.

(I've just fixed a customer file with both nulls and para values as well as the correct ones.)