Balanced and/or Cyclic Sports League Fixtures

[hutcheedingo]

I'm trying to develop a Sports Competition Management System, which ties in with a few other features for my sports association.  We have a number of leagues, based on Gender, Age, etc. which vary in team numbers, for example some leagues may have 12 teams, other only 7.

 

Some teams play each other only once per season, other two + times, it depends on the size of the league.

 

I have a few scripts which combined build the schedule of games (Time, Date, Round of Play) and my next step is how to create a Balanced Schedule for an Even Number of Teams, or a Cyclic Schedule for Odd Number of Teams.

 

Obviously, an IF function determines which Scheduling Algorithm to use, based on the number of teams in that particular league.

 

My problem now is to automatically assign the teams participating in the matches, in a way described at the following links

 

I assume it involves a rather complex calculation at some point in the script, but after searching high and low for some inspiration, and a few trial and error attempts... Nothing tangible to show for it.

 

Even # of Teams (Balanced)

 

Odd # of Teams (Cyclic)

 

My file can be downloaded from this link

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3onnzm4w75s08r2/Association%20Admin.fmp12

 

 Thanks in Advance 

[MartieH]

you might want to take a look at this: http://fmforums.com/forum/topic/89165-automated-sports-league-fixtures-through-a-script/

 

might have what you need............

 

Martie

[hutcheedingo]

Thanks MartieH,

I have used that solution, but ran into a few problems when it came to a league with an Odd Number of Teams.  That being said, an Even number of teams works perfectly...

 

I've found a bundle of solutions that are available in Python, but I just can't figure out how to convert those solutions into a Filemaker Script.

 

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11245746/league-fixture-generator-in-python

[MartieH]

what has been suggested with an odd number of teams is to make a 'ghost' team so that you have an even number  - whoever is playing the ghost team gets a bye for that go-round.

 

M

[hutcheedingo]

I've done that before Martie,

 

I'm really just looking for something that'll negate the need to remember the 'Ghost' option, which will also allow me to create x number of rounds, even if that means a round stops midway through, since there's only a limited number of weeks the competitions can go for before we MUST wrap things up in order to accommodate the finals.