Parsing text field

[glenhest53]

I have a calculation field with a result of container.

The name is entered by the user and then the related image is found.

Calc:

Path & RightWords ( Copy1 ; 1 ) & " " & LeftWords ( Copy1 ; 1 ) & ".jpg"

It works fine when there are just two words in a name.

i.e. "John Doe" in Copy2 field

will bring in image "Doe John.jpg"

But how should I allow for the following names:

"John Cooper-Smith"

image name: Cooper-Smith John

"Jean-Guy Deveraux"

image name: "Deveraux Jean-Guy"

"Ann Marie Smith"

image name: "Smith Ann Marie"

Thanks in advance for any help

Edited January 4, 2006 by Guest

[Lee Smith]

This is why you should NOT use names as a relationship key.

Establish a Unique Client ID for each person and use that as your key for each side of the relationship.

Lee

[glenhest53]

Lee:

Maybe I should explain a little further.

I am trying to duplicate a Roster that was done

in QuarkXpress and then printed.

The people now involved are not Graphic artists.

So the they want me to reproduce the QuarkXpress layout

in Filemaker.

4 images accross x 4 images down.

16 fields in each record to hold each person's image.

16 fields in each record to hold each person's name.

So I thought the easiest way was a path to the image folder

and a calculation to import each image.

To be honest I have not gone beyond the basics in Filemaker development and am not sure how to (or even if I could) use a Unique Client ID in this situation.

Edited January 4, 2006 by Guest

[Lee Smith]

Am I understanding you correctly/

The images are not currently in the file either as a reference or actual Insertion?

How do you knowing what images belong to whom?

HTH

Lee

[color:red]ps

How many images are you talking about?

(i.e. 4, 50, 200, 5,000 ..)

how many records?

Edited January 4, 2006 by Guest

[glenhest53]

The images are not currently in the file either as a reference or actual Insertion?

No the images are on an external server.

How do you knowing what images belong to whom?

The names are entered by the user in the fields Copy1 through Copy16 and then the related image is placed in the Calculation fields Image1 through Image16 using the calculation

Path & RightWords ( Copy1 ; 1 ) & " " & LeftWords ( Copy1 ; 1 ) & ".jpg".

For most names entered this calc works but not for the names as indicated in my initial post.

How many images are you talking about?

(i.e. 4, 50, 200, 5,000 ..)

About 700

how many records?

About 44

This is a barebones database just used for the function of creating a Roster of employees as detailed in my previous post.

Edited January 4, 2006 by Guest

[CoZiMan]

Hi,

Might I suggest you short-circuit the data entry and use the data structure of the file names to populate a series of fields?

No need to type things in again, right?

So I would:

1. Get the file directory listings

(TEXT - RETURN DELIMITED) as they are for the tones. In Mac OSX you just navigate to the directory, select all, copy, go to a text editor document, paste.

2. Import this/these text files to populate a database (with a 'serial' number field auto entered)

3. If these images are in multiple folders you'll have to have a seperate field entry for that as well to group them and to populate the file reference calculation we are coming to. . .

4. Depending on the OS - generate a file reference with the correct system delimiter in front of the folder and filenames you've just imported.

Now have a container field that is equal to the calculation of that file reference and Voila!

Photo Existence!

Setting up a layout to be populated or selecting record names is then a piece of cake. Way easier than trying to find a file that may/may not exist in a possible location.

For instance, assign a page number and position code to each image then use a single layout form to generate the final ?report? or view.

Questions???

(I do this A LOT ! ! ! with lots of images and reference structures.)