Replacing Carriage Returns in DB

[Todd Griffith]

Hi all, obviously I'm very much a newbie at FM.

I run a newspaper website where the prvious database whas a simple flat file text file. I've successfully imported it into FM, but now have an issue I can't seem to solve.

Wherever there were html line breaks, I need to turn into normal carriage returns within the field; i.e., find "

" and replace with a carriage return. What is the proper way to do that? In BBEdit I would replace with "r", but FM seems to take that quite literally.

TIA

[IdealData]

There is a "special" symbol for carriage returns - it loks like a "paragraph" symbol.

You should be able to replace all your "

" with "¶".

[Todd Griffith]

Hi Mark,

Well, pasting in the paragraph symbol also did it quite literally. Instead, I put a return elsewhere int he field, highlighted the return, then copy and pasted it into the replace field to get it to work.

Curious, where can I find a list of these special characters?

Thanks again!

[IdealData]

There are no other "special" characters, but check out the calculation entry box for more clues.

[Lee Smith]

I'm not totally sure I'm understanding what you are trying to do, but it sounds from this:

find "

" and replace with a carriage return

That all you would need to do is use a calculation and the Substitute function to get the results you are after.

There are two ways to approach this, either create a new field using the calculation shown below, or create at script that will loop through your records changing the data in your existing field.

The new field would be a calculation, text result

Substitute (YourTextField; "

"; "¶")

The Script would have a loop if you want to change more than the current field, and the Script Step of Set Field

SetField( YourTextField, Substitute (YourTextField; "

"; "¶")

HTH

Lee

[Todd Griffith]

Ah, I see. Thanks for the detailed description!

Todd