This is probably a silly question, but please bear with me.

I have created a flat-file database cataloguing the mutant fruit fly stocks in my lab. Each stock has a "BriefName" indicating the major mutation in the stock, but many stocks have many mutations in all 4 of their chromosomes. Therefore I have created 4 fields (Name1, Name2, Name3, Name4). Each stores the abbreviations for ALL mutations (even those not mentioned in the BriefName) on that particular chromosome.

However, this presents a problem in searching for stocks - searching by "BriefName" is not enough to catch everything in its net. Say I want to find a stock with "GFP" on any of its 4 chromosomes. I need to be able to search in ALL Name fields simultaneously. (e.g. Give me the stocks that contain the text "GFP" in Name1 OR Name2 OR Name3 OR Name4.) I cannot seem to script this!

The thing that really frustrates me is that it is SO easy to do this manually. You just type whatever you want ("GFP") into a field in Find mode, make as many requests and type the text into as many fields as you want, click Find, and away you go!

I have seen both the Filemaker article on "Scripting a Find Request So You Can Enter Multiple Requests and Have the Script Perform the Find" (answer #3474), which olny deals with "AND" finds in one field, and LERC Assistant's thread at . Mfero's response there to set each field to an input field in Find mode might work for me, but I'd rather not create totally separate fields if there's a more tidy solution.

Thoughts? Please let me know if this is not clear, and thanks in advance. This has been driving me nuts for weeks.

I disklike flat file, and know little about repeating fields however, if you made name a repeating field, and the field name 1 rep 1 of that field, name 2 rep 2 etc, searching in this field would then, (as far as i know) achieve your desired result.

~Genx