Combining multiple fields into a repeating field

[Chuck J]

FM6-WIN

I have information in 15 fields that I need to combine into a single repeating field so I can search for contents of one field rather than search through each of 15 fields.

Is there any way to do this.

[Lee Smith]

Hi Chuck,

Ok, what version and platform are you on again?

You can use a calculation field and Concatenate your field, and then do your search in it..

HTH

Lee

[Søren Dyhr]

Lee is absolutely right - But do yourself a favour understand that repeating fields are for utility purposes only!

--sd

[Chuck J]

I'm using FM 6 on a Windows box.

I guess I didn't explain my problem fully.

I am converting from a DOS database. The database is student records. There are 15 fields in the DOS database that contain course names. There are 15 courses. Some students took some courses. The courses are not entered in the fields in any order. If I want to find which student took a specific course, I'd have to search for a course in each of the 15 fields.

I have created 15 fields for the courses in the FM database and imported the records. Now I need to import all the records in the 15 fields into one repeating field with 15 repetitions.

I know I can import a repeating field with each repetition as a separate record. I'm just wondering if it is possible to import the other way, separate fields into a single field, like perhaps when mapping the fields, map Course 1 into the Repeating field as Added Record, then map Course 2 into the Repeating Field as Added Record, how do I map to repetition 2. I don't think it can be done. Do you know of any way?

[Søren Dyhr]

Now I need to import all the records in the 15 fields into one repeating field with 15 repetitions.

No - now is it the right moment to hessitate, and study relational designs instead. What you need is a portal to show the courses and certainly not a repeating field. This is as classic as "Hello world" is for the c++ newbe, almost every book on the topic uses this problem as the introduction to a many-to-many structure, so grap whatever book on relational design/data modelling.

--sd