Finds on "O'xxx" Names

[Bob White]

When doing a search on names such as O'Brien or O'Shea or O'Hare, I get nada -- nothing - no error message -- no results. This is when doing a search in Instant Publishing in the table view in search mode. The field is last names and is defined as text. Actually, there is a "sort of" response -- the search view does a screen redraw back to where it was in search mode. (e.g. If "O'B" was in the name field for the search, it is still there when the screen redraws.) (I tried both Explorer and Netscape; same result so I think it's an FMP problem - not a browser problem.)

There is no problem with any other searches. Has anyone encountered this before? Any advice?

[Keith M. Davie]

I'm not going to be much help with Instant, but have you tried the search for O'xxx directly in the db? Also, is the the only field involved in the Instant find action?

[Anatoli]

Did you try "O'Brien"?

[scratchmalogicalwax]

This is because FM wont search on reserved characters ie the " ' " .....there are many posts here on how to get round this

happy searching

[Keith M. Davie]

I tried entering the name O'Brien at my site. Then I gained reentry. Of course I use ScriptMaker to accomplish things. I had no problems using ScriptMaker on the web with the name O'Brien.

[Bob White]

Keith: No problems finding the same records directly. Or any other records in any field either direct or in IP.

Anatoli: Funny that you should use O'Brien as a sample because that was the name on the record my user was trying to find when he came to me with this "O'xxx" problem.

Scratchmalogical wax: Thanx for the clue. I will search.

[Bob White]

Spent a couple hours hunting both here and FMP knowledge base. Found two very old bulletins (102392 and 103463 -- circa 1998 -- regarding non-breaking characters) that were written for FMP 2.0 and were no help in solving this problem. Could not find anything here in the Forums.

I am advising my users to use an asterisk in place of "O'" when doing the finds in IP. For example: *hara will return O'Hara, Ishihara and a couple other "hara's" but, at least, the user can find all of the O'Hara's and get their work done.

[Garry Claridge]

I've just done some testing on my system: Mac OS X with IE 5.1 and FMP 5.5v2 WC5.5v3

I have a 'name' field with entries such as o'brien, o'hara and owen.

I have had no problems searching from a url in the address bar. I will try it from a form submission shortly.

All the best.

Garry

[Garry Claridge]

I have just finished testing searching from a form and have had no problems.

<form action="FMPro" method="post">

<input type="hidden" name="-db" value="combotest.fp5">

<input type="hidden" name="-lay" value="web">

<input type="hidden" name="-format" value="hworld4.html">

<input type="hidden" name="-error" value="fmperror.html">

Name: <input type="text" name="name" value="">

<input type="submit" name="-find" value="Find">

</form>

How are you submitting the search?

All the best.

Garry

[Keith M. Davie]

The single quote mark is not a reserved character nor a "wildcard" character.

There is not problem in searching for O'anthing, including Paddy O'Furniture.

Your problem is probably that you need to turn-off the smart-quote (curly-quote mark). The smart-quote cannot be used on the web.

[Garry Claridge]

Keith,

I just tried it with "Smart Quotes" 'off' then 'on' again, and it is working OK either way.

It may have to do with how the submisson is constructed, i.e. if a url is being constructed in the page the single and double quotes may be mixed-up.

I'm sure an answer exists somewhere!

Garry

[Bob White]

Garry: Thanx for your time but this database is using Instant Publishing.

Keith: I will check on the smart quote. And thank you.

[Bob White]

Hi, Keith: I have turned off the smart quotes. Makes no difference but thanks for the suggestion.

[Bob White]

Garrycl: I did say above that this was in Instant Publishing.

Keith: I have tried it both with smart quotes on and off. Does not appear to make any difference.

[Keith M. Davie]

Well that was my best shot. Perhaps it is something with IWP? As you can tell from the responses above, those of us using CWP do not experience this difficulty.

One thing you can try, if you haven't already, is perform the search on O'whatever from IWP. Then go to the db file and use 'Modify Last Find'. This will show you what (if anything) is being entered into the field upon which the find will act.

[Bob White]

Thank you for another suggestion. I had done this early on but I couldn't recall whether I did it with smart quotes off or not, so I did it again. At any rate, the result is that whatever I keyed from the web shows up exactly the same when I go to the db and do the refind. (e.g. If I keyed "o'whatever" from the web, I see "o'whatever" when I do the refind.)