This set entered on 8-3-14
8.2.14.8
- FileMaker’s TEXT HANDLING functions come in two flavors:
a. TEXT FUNCTIONS
b. TEXT FORMATTING FUNCTIONS
- What do TEXT FUNCTIONS do?
They handle tasks like parsing, or find whether a particular string of characters occurs in a field. They also let you change all instances of specific characters within a field, or count text length.
- What do TEXT FORMATTING FUNCTIONS do?
They can make part of the text in a field bold and red, etc. For example, they can search inside a field for the words “Propane Sale!” and make them red, leaving everything else untouched.
- What exactly is PARSING TEXT?
splitting text apart in useful ways.
- FileMaker can automatically break up text in THREE ways:
a. Characters
b. Words
c. Values
When it does the dividing, it gives you three ways to decide which parts you want: left, middle, or right.
- Parsing by CHARACTER is useful when:
you have data that is in a well known format and you need to access pieces of it, such as the area code, last four digits of a credit card number, etc.
- FileMaker can work with individual characters inside a TEXT VALUE:
The first letter in a text value is number one, the second number two, etc. Then you can ask for the first few characters, or the last few, or just the fifth, sixth, and seventh. EVERY LETTER, NUMBER, PUNCTUATION MARK, SPACE, TAB, CARRIAGE RETURN, OR OTHER SYMBOL COUNTS AS A CHARACTER.
- The LEFT function returns:
the first few letters of a text value, eliminating the rest.
- You PASS (tell) the calc the actual text value, and the number of letters you want. To get a person’s initials, your calc might look like:
Left ( First Name ; 1 ) & Left ( Last Name ; 1 )
