Using Fractional Numbers

[jblewis]

We are designing a database that my wife will use on film production work. She is a script supervisor and must track many items, including script pages. Here's our dilema.

Script pages are dealt with in eighths. So, if you are calculating pages, you might have 2 and 1/8 pages, or 3 and 3/8's pages, etc.

As part of her job, my wife each day has to track a lot of information related to script pages--total pages shot, total pages added to the script, total pages deleted from the script, etc.

We'd like to have her be able to do this within the the database we are creating. As such, it would be great if she could enter page quantities as decimels where the number behind the decimal point represents 1/8 of a page. for example--2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, and 2.7.

Then, we'd like certain calculation fields to be able to deal with these decimal entries as 1/8ths. So, if Field "A" contains 2.5 pages and Field "B" contains 2.3 pages, Field "C" could add them together and find the sum to be 5 pages.

We are beginners at using Filemaker Pro. But it seems like this should be possible. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Jim

[BobWeaver]

Calculations like these can be handled with the Int() and Mod() functions. To total several numbers (Num1...Num3), do this:

Eighths = ((Num1-Int(Num1)) + (Num2-Int(Num2)) + (Num3-Int(Num3)))*10

Units = Int(Num1) + Int(Num2) + Int(Num3)

Total = Units + Int(Eighths/8)+Mod(Eighths,8)/10