Export of records problem

[TinaY]

I have now been using FileMaker 8.5 on my mac for a year now and there is still a problem I cannot solve. My database consists of a few thousand business names, addresses, tel no's. etc under a certain classification. It's a local telephone directory where there are so many businesses listed under Accountants, Builders, Car Dealers etc. I export the information as a .bas file which I then import into Quark which I can easily edit ready for publication. I discovered the problem when I looked at the Banks & Building Societies classification, there are 5 Lloyds TSB banks on my database, all with different addresses and tel no's but there was only one listed once the records have been exported. This problem occurred on every listing that had more than one business of the same name. Can somebody please help, it is driving me to distraction and causing a lot of work. I have read the tutorial files back to front several times, what am I missing?

[Fenton]

FileMaker will (helpfully or unhelpfully) only export a name once if there's multiples of it AND you sorted by it. I don't really know why they would do this, it seems like monkeying around with data for no real reason other than making it "look pretty," like an exported "subsummary."

What you can do is create a calculation, result text, unstored, = Name. Then export that instead. Since it is NOT the field you sorted by, FileMaker will export it multiple times. (You could leave it stored, maybe it would be a tad faster, but that seems like bloat.)

Or you could create a concatenated field of Name & SerialID (unique), and sort by that instead. But it would have to be stored, hence bloat.

Tell me if I'm wrong; I haven't had to do this for quite a while, but that's what I remember.

Edited February 7, 2008 by Guest

[TinaY]

You kind of lost me in the second paragraph, you are obviously well up on FM. I'm afraid I am still a novice and not used to the heavy jargon. I will try and look into what you have suggested but it will take me a while. Thanks

[Fenton]

First, be on a layout of the table you're talking about. This just sets the default field choices to that table, makes things easier. Then go into Define Database, Fields, and create a calculation field, with a text result (down at the bottom, default is number). Then, in the calculation box, enter the real field, Business Name (or whatever it is). Do this by scrolling the field list in the top left of the dialog window until you find it. Double-click it to enter into the calculation box.

You can then hit the Storage options, at the bottom right, and set it to [x] Do not store. But that's optional.

Then export that field instead of the real field (which you were using for sorting). FileMaker will export all values of the calculation field, because it's not being used for sorting.

[TinaY]

Just tried this and if I have done it right! I have now lost the Classification Headings with their groups of business names under them, so it seems I do have to use the classification field to sort the records. I ended up with the business names that had the same names though!!

This problem does only happen when I sort by the classification field. If I export just the complete database businesses with the telephone numbers and no sort I get the duplicate names okay.

You must think I am really dumb!!