'Self-Join' relationship

[frinholp]

Hi all

I have created a self-join relationship using the same field in both TOC's to create the (=) relationship. This is to enable me to check for uniqueness of a field using

Count ( TOC::Field) > 0

The problem is that only the first line in the field is being taken into consideration. If a carriage return is entered into the field, any text following is ignored.

Does anybody know why this is the case?

Thanks in advance

Lee

[Vaughan]

The return is used to separate values to make a list. This behaviour allows "multi-keys" to be created in key fields, which can be useful for managing relationships.

Why are you using a self-join based on a text field to check for uniqueness? Have you looked at using the "unique" field-level validation option instead?

[frinholp]

Thanks for the reply Vaughan.

I am creating a system that is quite heavy on validation. I have been asked to create meaningful dialogs that are specific to the point validation failed which I am unable to do using the native validation. I can only produce a generic dialog using the native system, and only one calculation rather than breaking the validation down into many calculations with a relevant message.

I have also been asked to standardise the validation dialogs which prevents me from using the native uniqueness check.

Any suggestions

Lee

[comment]

As Vaughan said, if you have a self-join relationship:

Field = Selfjoin::Field

and Field in record 1 contains "abc¶def" while Field in record 2 contains "def", these two records will be related. To determine a more exact match*, you can use a calculation field that substitutes the carriage return with another character.

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(*) More exact - but still not case-sensitive, unless you change the field's indexing language.