Isolating a single line of a repeated field

[yellowcake]

Hi Guys, got one that i cant figure out ...

What i have is a quoting system that has a lot of existing records. Ive been asked to split these quotes up as they will now be funded by 2 different divisions.

When i built the original i used a repeating field to enter all the various figures and create the totals. (i cant change the way this works as it wll stuff up the several 1000 quotes that have already been produced yeah)

Now i need to isolate line 9 from this set of repeating fields, display that as a stand alone figure to be billed to one department, then display the rest of the repeating fields to be paid by the other department.

is there a way to do this without affecting the existing records? lookups/searches/:

Cheers in advance

Al (scratching head and sorry if this is a dumb question)

[Søren Dyhr]

Now i need to isolate line 9 from this set of repeating fields,

Who have told you repeaters were up to anything serious datastructure wise?

--sd

[yellowcake]

Who have told you repeaters were up to anything serious datastructure wise?

--sd

Not really a data structure issue, more if i remove/change the way these fields work it affects all the other quotes used by all the other clients... (this is a one off case for one client who wants things to be done their way rather than our way if you follow me).

Next financial year we will be creating a fresh system so this wont be a problem, it could be built in a different way to facilitate this requirement, but until then i need to find a painless workaround.

I think ive found a way buy duplicating the functionality of the field in question, then getting the account managers to enter the details into it rather than the regular field.

I was wondering mainly if there was a quick and easy way to isolate (or lookup) a specific field repeat number in a repeating set. IE: line 9 of 22 repeats in if that explains things any better

Cheers

Al

[Søren Dyhr]

While I keep wondering why this makes trouble at all - could I only take your words "as is" and make a template showing what your problem literally could mean - and still say do not employ repeaters to such a problem at all - repeaters are for utility purposes only, never remedy for lack of relational structure.

Similar does the reading of your description reveal another unhealthy approach. Do only use lookups when historic issues occur such as fluctuating price levels, for singling out a record as is should have been should be done with a pointer to the record ID not a stored transfer!

--sd

pluckRepeat.zip

[yellowcake]

ahh.. yup that is a much more elegant solution.

i'll have a crack at reworking the files to do things that way instead of the way.

Just to put you in the picture, Im no way a FM developer. im more the guy that dabbled a bit so they made me "the filemaker expert" in the company. I've come to rely heavily upon this group for solutions and workarounds for my back-to-front FM logic ;-) so thanks to everyone

Cheers Al

[Søren Dyhr]

You can skimp on the relational build of the valuelist of availiable lines, and hardwire it instead! It's meant as socratic noise ... so omittion of the two fields shown in the oval in the image above could be done.

--sd