Container field size

[JAC23]

I have a client who is supposed to be creating links to files into container fields. You click the button, then link the acrobat document to the field. The problem is the DB contains about 10,000 records, 12 container fields and is over 1GB in size. Some of the client's employees are not linking, but embedding and I need to figure out which to get the file size down.

Is there a way to tell how big (in kb) a field is? Is there some other way to determine if the object is linked or embedded? I have been monkeying around with ExportFM trying to figure out how to export the field contents to try to tell me. Any ideas? Thanks.

[BrentHedden]

I'm not aware of any way to 'automatically' find out if it's linked or embedded. There is the Status(CurrentFieldContents), but it only returns what is actually in the field, not what "kind" of contents.

To find out the file size, use the Status(CurrentFileSize) function. It returns the info in bytes, so you'll have to convert the return into kilo or mega bytes, whichever you prefer (1024 bytes = 1 kilobyte). You could use this info when the program starts up, it checks the size of each file. If one file is getting too large, display a warning message. I use 1.5 Gig as a cutoff point, 2 Gig being the maximum. You certainly don't want the file to get over 2 gigs - the file will "freeze", and it's a major pain in the butt to extract out that info, especially container fields. Check out this posting - http://www.fmforums.com/threads/showflat...true#Post142293

to see what to do if a file does "freeze".

[JAC23]

To find out the file size, use the Status(CurrentFileSize) function.

Thanks, but you misunderstood. If I could determine FIELD size, then I would know which ones had the embedded document vs. the links.

[stefanshotton]

something that ive come across whilst playing with container fields is that if you have a field that is a calc to text of the container field if the doc is embedded then it will retun a docs name ie bible.pdf if it is referenced then it will return a file path c:blahblahblah

the paths may be similar enough that you can set up a calc to flag which ones are ok.

[sebastianzimmer]

I just make a Formula Field and define it as...

length(the name of your container field)

It works for me but I am not sure if thats what you want. You can always round that up(or down). It displays your file size in Byte, so you might want to divide by 1000 or a million. Try it?