if statement

[oshnic]

I have a field define as a calculation type.

I want to create a nested if.

Ex. If(mother="deceased")and

If(father="deceased")

field="the late "

New to filemaker pro.. Not sure of the syntax. Thanks for your help...

[danjacoby]

Assuming you want the words "the late" to appear if both parents are deceased, otherwise the field is blank:

Field=

If(mother="deceased", If(father="deceased", "the late", ""), "")

The syntax is: If(condition, then, else). In this case, there's a nested "If" statement in the "then" part of the first "If" statement.

HTH,

Dan

[Chuck]

quote:

---

Originally posted by oshnic:

I have a field define as a calculation type.

I want to create a nested if.

Ex. If(mother="deceased")and

If(father="deceased")

field="the late "

New to filemaker pro.. Not sure of the syntax. Thanks for your help...

---

For this particular instance, you don't need to nest the Ifs. You could do the following:

If( mother="deceased" and father="deceased", field="the late ", "" )

If there does come a time when a nested if would be what you want because you can't get what you need with the above kind of calc, you might want to take a look at the Case statement, which has syntax like this:

Case( test1, result1, test2, result2, default result)

The above is functionally equivelant to

If( test1, result1, If( test 2, result 2, default result ))

But you can see that if you have ten possibilities, a nested If can get pretty convoluted, which is why in general, the Case statement is prefered.

Chuck

[LiveOak]

I second that one, Chuck. I find myself using more and more Case statements almost to the exclusion of using the IF() statement. When written:

Case(

test1, result1,

test2, result2,

test3, result3,

default)

it is much easier to create, read, and debug. The added carriage returns and blanks cause no problems. -bd