Dynamic Find/Replace "merge" fields in Text field

[Dan Gronwald]

I have a Text field that will have "merge" fields. I want to replace them with actual field values, but I don't want to have to add a IF/END IF and Find/Replace script line for each "merge" field.

For example:

Dear <<First_Name>>:

Thank your for your donation of $<<donation_amount>>.

---------

These "merge" fields may change depending on the content of the letter. I would like to be able to replace all the "merge" fields with field names that are represented between the "<<" and ">>". I'm looking for a way to scan through the whole text and whereever it sees "<<" and ">>" to replace that value with the field name between them. So, in this example (and there would be different ones) I would replace <<First_Name>> with the value in the field [First_Name] and the same with <<donation_amount>>. I have created a script to search for each one manually by creating an IF statement for each possible value in this field. This seems too clumsy to me especially if I want to add new merge fields on the fly. Any advice out there would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Dan Gronwald

[email protected]

[quillpro]

Make your text field a calculation field then enter your paragraph like such as the calc.

"Dear " & First_Name & ":" & "

[Ender]

I made a custom function to do this last summer:

http://www.fmforums.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=120434

Although this was for version 7, perhaps the idea could be translated to a scripted approach in FM6.

If not, there's a way to do this with a calculation field, though you'd need to explicitly say what the field substitutions are:

ResultField (calculation, text result) = substitute ( substitute ( substitute ( SourceField, "<<First_Name>>", First_Name), "<<Last_Name>>", Last_Name ), "<<donation_amount>>", donation_amount )

[Dan Gronwald]

Thank you both for your speedy replies. Since I'm using FMP v.6 I couldn't use the function option. And, I didn't want to use the Calculation field option because I have dynamic letters that use different tag fields depending on the type of letter, etc.

However, I was inspired by both and came up with a workable solution. By adding 3 dummy fields to temporarily hold the tag name, field name, and field value I'm able to parse through the letter text and do Find/Replace whereever there's a <<tag>>. It works great.

Go to Field ("Letter_Text")

If ("PatternCount((Letter_Text, "<<") > 0)

Loop

Set Field["tag_holder", "Middle(Letter_Text , Position( Letter_Text, "<<",

1, 1) , Position( Letter_Text, ">>", 1, 1) -

Position( Letter_Text, "<<", 1, 1) + 2)"]

Set Field["fldname_holder", "Middle(Letter_Text , Position( Letter_Text,

"<<", 1, 1) + 2 , Position( Letter_Text, ">>",

1, 1) - Position( Letter_Text, "<<", 1, 1) -

2)"]

Set Field["fldvalue_holder", "GetField(fldname_holder)"]

Perform Find/Replace [No dialog, "tag_holder", "fldvalue_holder", "Replace

All"]

Exit Loop If ["PatternCount(Letter_Text, "<<") = 0"]

End Loop

End If

thanks,

Dan Gronwald

[BobWeaver]

The simplest method I've found to do this in FM6 is to use nested Substitute functions like this:

Substitute(Substitute(Substitute(Substitute(

Substitute(Substitute(Substitute(Textfield,

"<<Field01>>",Field01),

"<<Field02>>",Field02),

"<<Field03>>",Field03),

"<<Field04>>",Field04),

"<<Field05>>",Field05),

"<<Field06>>",Field06),

"<<Field07>>",Field07)

You just have to set it up ahead of time for whichever fields you want to allow your user to access.