Okay....
....it WORKS!
That's great!!!!
Now, I just need to find a way to deal with the potential for a search
on numbers, dates, or times.
I think I can come up with something that'll work.
Regards,
Chuck
On Jun 4, 2009, at 5:55 PM, Jason L DeLooze wrote:
Chuck,
If I'm reading this correctly, a Person (Chuck Pelto) in the People
table can have 1 or more records in the Characteristics table; that
is, the "Chuck" People record can have a related Characteristics
record with the values:
CharName = "Hair Color"
CharValue = "Blonde"
and another related Characteristics record with the values:
CharName = "Eye Color"
CharValue = "Blue"
On the other hand, you could have setup fields [HairColor and
EyeColor, for example] in the People table and stored the CharValue
[Blonde and Blue] in their respective fields. Of course, this
second approach requires you to know a priori all the possible
Characteristics of a Person, but the search would be simpler, more
direct, and avoid a problem which I will mention below.
======
To solve the problem using your setup, you will need several copies
of the Characteristics table, each related to the People TO via a
PEOPLE::RecID = CHARACTERISTICS::LinkToPeople join.
Let's be more specific ... In the RG, create 3 copies of the
Characteristics TO, named CHAR1, CHAR2, and CHAR3. Join each of
these TOs to the PEOPLE TO via
PEOPLE::RecID = CHAR1::LinkToPeople
PEOPLE::RecID = CHAR2::LinkToPeople
PEOPLE::RecID = CHAR3::LinkToPeople
On the PEOPLE layout, based on the PEOPLE TO above, appropriately
place the fields
CHAR1::CharName and CHAR1::CharValue
CHAR2::CharName and CHAR2::CharValue
CHAR3::CharName and CHAR3::CharValue
as you see fit.
To find People who are blond-haired, green-eyed and an IQ over 120,
enter Find Mode and type
"Hair color" into CHAR1::CharName; "Blonde" into CHAR1::CharValue ;
"Eye color" into CHAR2::CharName; "Green" into CHAR2::CharValue ;
"IQ" into CHAR3::CharName; ">120" into CHAR3::CharValue
Perform Find and you will get everyone who meets this criteria ...
except that the IQ characteristic is a numerical value stored in a
text-type field. Therefore, the "IQ" search will match those with
an IQ = 20 because "20" > "120" as text.
Therefore, if all your Characteristics will be text values - or you
don't plan on searching for a numerical range, such as "> 120", then
this approach will be OK. But if this is not the case, then you
should merge the various Characteristics into the People table (as
attributes), setting the correct field-type (text, number, date,
time, etc).
======
Hope this helps,
Jason L. DeLooze
Annapolis, MD
On 6/4/09 at 12:08 PM -0600, Chuck Pelto wrote:
What is the best way to build a recursive search capability into an
FMP10 Script?
For example, you have two tables: People and Characteristics.
People has fields: Name, RecID.
Characteristics has fields: LinkToPeople, CharName, e.g., eye-
color, hair-color, etc., and CharValue, e.g., for eye-color, blue,
green, brown, gray.
I'm looking for a way to do a search in Characteristics that would
find all the People who are red-haired, gray-eyed and left-handed.
Or, in another search, People who are blond-haired, green-eyed and
an IQ over 120.
Can this be done?
Regards,
Chuck
