Repeating Fields....Why?

[Zero Tolerence]

I'm an Advanced FM7 user (Advanced, not Expert), I have actually developed quite a few very nifty solutions, but, I've never used a Repeating field. I don't see what good they could possibly be. Can someone give me a scenario/example as to when you would use a repeating field? Maybe I'm just missing the whole concept of them.

[Ender]

Repeating fields were used before portals were available for creating line items. They still have their uses for utility purposes, usually when you need to store things in each discrete slot (like an array,) or for storing interface graphics or text.

[Søren Dyhr]

Well I tend to use them on rare occations as key-holders for multiline keys to make a OR'ish relation - but I do usually attack newbe's attempt to break 1NF with them ...which is the most common mistake they make.

While not knowing exactly why repeating fields recieved an feature upgrade with 7 - could we only guess that it's ment to be the thrify developers custom function by the exploitation of Get ( CalculationRepetitionNumber ) ...as Bruce Robertsson once said somewhere can you define a calendar by two fields:

Date ( Month ( Extend ( aDate ) ) ; Get ( CalculationRepetitionNumber ) ; Year ( Extend ( aDate ) ) )

...if this is a 31 repeater will the calc' produce the entire month around "aDate" ...and since the relations implementation now behaves bidirectional could this be used as a OR'key...

--sd

[DykstrL]

Repeating fields are a throw back to earlier versions where files were not relatable. As Ender stated, they still have mostly utility uses, but not much more.

Where most beginners go astray with repeating fields is, they are easy to add a related table to the record without creating a related file or table (V7). Even with newer versions, it added some portability to stand-alone files that did not require any additional files for functionality. This actually works great for using FileMaker (V6 or earlier) for fill-and-print electronic forms, which is usually based on a finite design. When they start wanting to do something with that data, that's when they run into shortcomings and dead ends (isn't that why we use databases in the first place?).

They can still have some uses IF you fully understand the limitations:

1. A finite, fixed number of repetitions.

2. No manipulation of data is required other than a total of the repetitions (sum[repeating field]).

3. No need to do finds or sorts based on data in the repeating field.

4. No need to extract, move, or copy data unless you are willing to do some extensive repetitive scripting.

That's my take on it...

[petal]

i have a need to port data from one portal to another in a single layout and cannot get filemake to do this. i can get the 'second' portal to extract data from consecutive fields in a repeating field (using a looping script and a counting field), but i cannot get the data from the 'first' portal in to the repeating field. is there a way to do this? or better still can someone suggest how to get data from one portal directly to another?

[Ender]

Off topic. Petal, why not start your own thread.