Duplicate table

[charliecharles75]

I have spent a number of hours defining fields in a table. I now need to recreate an exact copy of that table in the same file so that I don't have to spend hours defining all of those fields again and redoing all of the options for each field when they only need minor adjustments.

I have found a solution whereby you can export the fields of that table as an FM file and then import back into the file creating a new table from the imported file. Only problem with this solution is that the workings/options for these fields do not import - only the field tags/defintions themselves.

Does anybody have any solution without resorting to having to purchase FM advanced which I know caters for this kind of issue?

Thanks in advance.

[Søren Dyhr]

Just clone the file and then import without mapping fields and you have 2 tables identical, but ... I must warn you here. You might lean yourself up against a pretty badly normalized solution. This might not be worse than farting in a lift/elevator, but you're just as well likely to paint yourself into a corner.

There is absolutely no excuse allowing anyone in a solution to have two identical tables, because all normalization's aim is to prevent synchronization ... which seems to be staring you in the face here.

I'm fully aware that this whim very easily could originate from a managerial desire ... I could be wrong but you seems to be barking up against exactly the same tree as this:

http://fmforums.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/213320/post/350324/#350324

--sd

[charliecharles75]

sd

This works like a charm - thank you. I understand your point, however given the work and extensive calculation writing required this will save me hours of work.

Cheers

Charlie

[Søren Dyhr]

But if you look at an arbitrarily chosen table in a normalized solution will the number of fields hardly ever exceed some 20 fields ... and the need to rewrite those with some swift method isn't hardly worth the efford.

If however you should have mistaken the gist of the tool, to be some sort of spreadsheet done differently - are you likely to have a record/field ratio favouring the denominator part of the fraction ... which isn't the intention at all!

extensive calculation writing

...seems to point in this direction, bear in mind that filemaker fills a quite unique niche in having them at all, calculations are carried solely by scripting in most other RDMS'es ....

--sd