Summarizing a text field

[river bend]

If I have a text field that contains a particular state. How do i return a list of all states that are being used for the found records.

[Fitch]

Depends what you mean... You could make a subsummary layout. You could export to a text file. You could go to a layout with just that field on it and use the Copy All Records command. You could loop through the records with a script or a custom function, e.g. http://www.briandunning.com/cf/471 . A custom function is a nice way to do it. Did you need to get rid of duplicates or not? There are some other examples on Dunning's site that do that.

[Søren Dyhr]

Eventhough Tom just descriped the most commonly used methods, could it be interesting to see a solution encompassing a lot of the ways in one single template - since you are a little thrifty when mentioning purpose and context, would it indeed be nice to know what your take on a list is?

http://www.filemakerpros.com/GetNthRecordTAIL.zip

I would say that Copy All Records only should be used when speed is crucial, since it's a bad programming habit to involve the users clipboard.

Further should it be considered if the listing should undergo a "only one of each" algorithm or the same thing should be solved relationally - is this a reporting issue or a wish to see this in browse-mode?

--sd

[river bend]

I'm trying capture a summary of this text field and then in another table create a new record for every for every summary. another words no duplicates. I've tried using a loop in a script but can't get the right results.

[Fenton]

Why not use a relationship from the one table to the other? If there's no match, it's a new value, create a new record.

If it's a one-shot deal though, the "sort, then export [x] grouped by, then import" is the fastest way to get new records of unique values.

[Søren Dyhr]

I'll put out another warrant for both context and purpose, it is as if this post is a repetition of this post:

http://www.fmforums.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/194589/fromsearch/$fromactivity/tp/0/all/1/

There is a template I wish you to investigate:

http://www.nightwing.com.au/FileMaker/demos8/demo803.html

However is there in the thread you unintentionally carbon copy a mentioning of "Fastsummaries" which originate from here:

http://www.onegasoft.com/tools/fastsummaries/index.shtml

...which by todays facilities in the ScribtMaker - could go like this:

--sd

Untitled.zip