Overly complicated Find Request?

[Slowfib]

Maybe I'm confusing myself, but I'm still getting used to how to make Find calls using the FM PHP API and could use some help.

I have a table with 4 fields: Date, City, Size, Status.

And I have a form where a user can filter the data by checking off one or more of those field values.

So for example the use could check off a number of checkboxes to make the filter criteria:

Date: 08/30/2011…08/30/2011

City: Los Angeles, San Francisco

Size: 100x200, 100x300

Status: Active, Disabled

If all these record combinations existed, I would get back the results:

08/30/2011 LA active 100x200

08/30/2011 LA disable 100x300

08/30/2011 LA disable 100x200

08/30/2011 LA active 100x300

08/30/2011 SF active 100x200

08/30/2011 SF disable 100x300

08/30/2011 SF disable 100x200

08/30/2011 SF active 100x300

This type of request doesn't work because each 2nd request of the same Field, simply overwrites the parameters:

$request->addFindCriterion('Data', '07/26/2009...07/26/2009');

$request->addFindCriterion('City', 'Los Angeles');

$request->addFindCriterion('City', 'San Francisco');

$request->addFindCriterion('Size', '100x200');

$request->addFindCriterion('Size', '100x300');

$request->addFindCriterion('Status', 'Active');

$request->addFindCriterion('Status', 'Disabled');

So now I'm looking at doing a CompoundFind Search.

But then does that mean I need create 8 CompoundFind's to get these results?

My actual data, has about 80 different Cities, 10 size's and 4 statuses. If every option was selected, I would need A LOT of CompoundFind requests, wouldn't I?

Is there a better way I should handle this? Or is this how I need to do it?

If it were SQL, I would simply do:

SELECT *

FROM table

WHERE Date = '2009-07-26'

AND City IN ('Los Angeles', 'San Francisco')

AND Size IN ('100x200', '100x300')

AND Status IN ('Active', 'Disabled')

Thanks.

[Slowfib]

So just in case someone ever stumbles across this thread.

What I ended up doing with this was creating a table and writing my criteria to a field for each (each value seperated by a new line), then created several table relationships for the data and then displayed it as a portal in a layout.

As my criteria changes, I just edit the record in my table and the relationship and thus my portal, displays exactly what I'm after.

I think I just wrapped my head around how FileMaker makes it's data work Cool!

[David Jondreau]

It's probably simpler to call a script, passing the filter as a parameter.