I am importing data to a revised solution. Whilst doing this I'm also converting all the relationship keys to strictly numeric, whereas the first version had text/number combo - so I'm just going to use the number part.

After import a re-assign the serial fields with a GetAsNumber to strip the text and use a proper number. The last step, to reset the next serial value:

Set Next Serial Value (serial-id; Max (serial_id) + 1)

does not work.

In fact it persists in returning the serial_id + 1 of the CURRENT RECORD. The workaround is to go to the last record of course (as shown in the help system) but the syntax for the calc is correct - FMP just won't do it.

I checked this in FMP 9, no joy. Is this a BUG?

the syntax for the calc is correct

Not really. Max ( field ) refers to the field in the current record only. So it doesn't actually do anything - unless that field is a repeating field.

If you had a relationship (for example a self-join using the x operator), you could use Max ( related::field ). That would look at the entire related set. What you really want is to aggregate the found set, but only summary fields do that.

There are some semantics here - "only" ... what about repeating fields or a list of fields in the same table?

--sd

Thanks guys. I had over interpreted the description from the help system - you are of course correct.

Why did gdurniak delete his post?