I have a database with a 2 text fields: (animal_name) which contains 1000 records and (photographer_name) which can have up to 4 people in it (photographer 1, 2, 3, 4). All I want to know is which animals are only represented by the first 2.

If you want to perform a search from layout mode click on View>Find Mode OR Click the Find Icon then enter in Photographer Field: "Photographer 1" then click on "Requests">"Find New Request" then enter in Photographer Field: "Photographer 2" then find. This sets up an "OR" find. If you want to find all photographers who photographed Giraffe's then it would be Giraffe and Photographer 1 then "Requests">"Find New Request" and Giraffe and Photographer 2.

HTH

Thank you.

What I want to implement:

List the animals which result from a find of (photog1 AND photog 2) AND (photog3 OR photog4) if there are any.

Is this better done in a script or another way? I can't seem to figure out any other find system which allows this degree of folded boolean statements so I assume it must be a multi-step. I guess I've never asked much of Filemaker although I used it since it was a Nashoba product. I'll study harder, get some training but I need to crack this.

...and (photographer_name) which can have up to 4 people in it ...

Hi

"up to" or one of ?

IOW: sometimes there is more than one name in that field ?

Your data structure is letting you down.

You need an Animals table, a Photographer table, and an Images table.

Animals --> Images <-- Photographer

Hello,

For every animal there are 2 particular photographers (1&2) present throughout. There can be one or both of 2 others present as well. What I actually need to know is those animals which only have the first 2. Is that more clear? : Thanks

If what you are saying is that it is possible to have Photog1 and Photog2 present in the same field at the same time then Vaughn is correct the problem is within the structure of your database. If you have a one to many relationship within a record it should be split into separate tables.

Table1: Animals

Table2: Photographers

Table3: Images /* Where there are multiple images of the same animal

Then your relationships could be set between:

Animals>Photographers

Animals>Images

Photographers>Images

Now you can easily get a report listing:

Giraffe

Photographer1

Photographer2

Lion

Photographer2

Photographer3

Cat

Photographer1

Photographer4

etc.

I would suggest you go here:

http://www.foundationdbs.com/downloads.html

and read :

White Paper for FMP Novices

AND

Database Design for FMP

They are very well done and will give you a better understanding of relational database design.

HTH

Al