Category: Version: FM 12 or later

ExecuteSQL, Level: Intermediate, Version: FM 12 or later

Outer Joins in FileMaker 12, part 2

Kevin Frank

Last week in part 1 we looked at four “outer join” reporting approaches. Two of them involved ExecuteSQL, and I ended that section with the plea: Of course it’s possible that you, dear reader, know some FileMaker SQL voodoo to speed things up, and would be willing to share? Well Dr. Osamu Noda of Japan was kind enough to not only respond, but has provided a pair of demos (Outer Join Demo 5 and Outer Join Demo 6) which are significantly faster and which I am sharing with his permission.

Both of the demos are based on my original files from last week, and as you may recall, the aim was to show a week’s worth of sales for all employees whether they had any sales or not.

Continue reading “Outer Joins in FileMaker 12, part 2” →

ExecuteSQL, Level: Intermediate, SQL, Version: FM 12 or later

Outer Joins in FileMaker 12, part 1

Kevin Frank

Recently I had an on-screen reporting challenge, and decided to try several different approaches to see which would be fastest. The challenge: Starting with two tables, one containing 20 Employees, and one containing 2,000 Sales records for the current year…

…display daily sales totals per employee in a seven-day grid, like so:

Continue reading “Outer Joins in FileMaker 12, part 1” →

Beverly Voth, ExecuteSQL, Level: Intermediate, Version: FM 12 or later

Aggregates (Summary Fields) in Filtered Portals

beverlyvoth

The question on one or more of the FileMaker forums was asked and answered. Q: How do you get the Count() of the related records in a filtered portal? A: (paraphrased) duplicate the filtered portal and make it one row in height. Place the related summary field, “Count of…”, in the single row filtered portal. Voila! your count is now filter-specific. (The instructions for creating the filter for a portal and summary field are below.)

This recent topic led me to consider what other aggregate fields could be used with the filtered portal. And what about that Go To Related Record script step? Does it only show the related FILTERED records or all related records? The demo (bvoth_aggregates_in_portals.fmp12) and article have been created to answer these questions.

I started using filtered portals in cross-tab reports shortly after they were introduced. These are generally ways to show something very specific in each portal with sorts and filters and usually one row only. I had not explored the use of aggregates in these cross-tab reports until now.

Kudos to those before me that may have discovered these answers and tricks, too.

Continue reading “Aggregates (Summary Fields) in Filtered Portals” →

ExecuteSQL, Level: Advanced, SQL, Version: FM 12 or later

More Fun with Value Lists, part 2

Kevin Frank

Update 20 Aug 2012: Dr. Noda has updated the demo files to include Rob Russell’s clever fill graphic trick (as per the responses following the article). Thank you Rob and Dr. Noda.

As promised last time, today we’re going to look at a technique from Dr. Osamu Noda, which uses FM 12’s ExecuteSQL to create what appears to be a value list when in fact there are no value lists defined at all.

This technique, like some of the others we’ve seen recently, is decidedly esoteric, but it shows some clever outside-the-box thinking, and I appreciate Dr. Noda taking the time to share the demo (ValueListWithoutDefinition-RR-Edition) and write up his notes. One of the things I particularly like about this technique is that it allows the order of the value list items to be customized, even though the values come from a table.

Continue reading “More Fun with Value Lists, part 2” →

ExecuteSQL, Level: Advanced, Version: FM 12 or later

More Fun with Value Lists, part 1

Kevin Frank

One of the things I love about FileMaker is how many different ways there are to skin the proverbial cat. Following our recent look at “Magic Value Lists,” I received thought-provoking FileMaker 12 demos from John Ahn and Dr. Osamu Noda.

I’m going to save Dr. Noda’s files for next time, but today we have two variations on a demo which resulted from a discussion with Nick Chapin on FileMaker TechNet. Actually, the first variation is from John (lib_valueLists_john_ahn_mod), and the second is an alternate approach that I came up with. If you’re a TechNet member (registration is free), you can read the original discussion here. At any rate, the objectives were:

  1. Store the entries for all value lists in a single table (thereby allowing authorized users to construct and maintain value lists using name-value pairs, without having access to FileMaker’s “Manage Value Lists”)
  2. Use UUIDs
  3. Use popup menus
  4. Have the value lists work properly in Find mode
  5. Value lists should be “portable” (i.e., accessible from any table context)

Let’s start with John’s version.

This is the value list table:

Continue reading “More Fun with Value Lists, part 1” →

ExecuteSQL, Level: Intermediate, SQL, Version: FM 12 or later

Magic Value Lists

Kevin Frank

Folks, we have a superb demo today (MagicValueList), which comes courtesy of Andries Heylen of BH&A…

But first a bit of background. Prior to July 18, 2012, if anyone had told me you could base a value list on an unstored field, my response would have been something along the lines of…

  • What app are you using? (Because it sure as heck ain’t FileMaker.)
  • Why are you wasting my time with this nonsense?
  • Is today April Fool’s Day?
  • What are you smoking?

But then John Ahn showed this amazing Conditional Value List demo during the DevCon “Unconference” session devoted to ExecuteSQL (see previous posting), and to my way of thinking, the most intriguing part of session was only incidentally concerned with SQL, because John seemingly had achieved the impossible — a value list based on an unstored field.

Continue reading “Magic Value Lists” →

ExecuteSQL, Level: Intermediate, SQL, Version: FM 12 or later

FM 12 ExecuteSQL: Robust Coding, part 2

Kevin Frank

In part 1, I listed six scenarios that could potentially cause ExecuteSQL code to break:

…and managed to get through the first five before running out of steam. This time, we’re going to examine #6 on the list, and then look at a few miscellaneous odds ’n’ ends, and today’s demo file is ExecuteSQL Sandbox, v2, if you’d like to follow along.

Changing a Field Type

Why would changing a field’s type cause a problem? Well, first off, as I mentioned last month, if you are using that particular field as a predicate in a JOIN, the query will break, and your reward will be the the dreaded “?”.

I don’t have a fix for this, just some advice: Don’t change a field’s type if you’ve used it as a JOIN predicate in a working SQL statement. (The only reason I’ve needed to change a field type recently was to fix a broken JOIN where the field types were mismatched.)

Continue reading “FM 12 ExecuteSQL: Robust Coding, part 2” →

ExecuteSQL, Level: Intermediate, SQL, Version: FM 12 or later

FM 12 ExecuteSQL: Robust Coding, part 1

Kevin Frank

[Note: Some of the material in this article, and in today’s demo file ExecuteSQL Sandbox, previously appeared in my March 2011 article, Custom Functions for Internal SQL.]

Demo file: ExecuteSQL-sandbox.zip

The other day a colleague remarked, “You know, it’s going to be interesting to see if you SQL guys are still so excited about ExecuteSQL when something gets renamed and your code breaks.” He had a good point: code is “brittle” if it works initially, but then subsequently breaks as a result of a seemingly innocuous action.

Here are some things that can cause ExecuteSQL code to break:

  1. Renaming a table occurrence (TO)
  2. Renaming a field
  3. Using a “reserved word” as a field or TO name
  4. Having a problematic character in a field or TO name
  5. Executing the code in a foreign country (!)
  6. Changing a field’s type (e.g., from text to number or vice versa)

…and today we’re going to look at some defensive measures we can employ to prevent problems when these things occur.

Using the “orders” table in the demo file…

Continue reading “FM 12 ExecuteSQL: Robust Coding, part 1” →

ExecuteSQL, Level: Intermediate, SQL, Version: FM 12 or later

FM 12 ExecuteSQL: Dynamic Parameters, pt 2

Kevin Frank

This is a quick follow-up to part 1, with a couple more observations about dynamic parameters.

Embedded Apostrophes

Here’s one I can’t believe I forgot to mention the other day:  A major ExecuteSQL headache that dynamic parameters can alleviate is the dreaded “embedded apostrophe” problem. In case you aren’t familiar with it, if your text string contains an embedded apostrophe, in standard SQL you must escape it by prepending another apostrophe, for example compare these two “standard” (non-dynamic) queries:

As you might expect, you don’t have to worry about this if you instead use a dynamic parameter… just quote the search term the way you would any FileMaker text string (i.e., in double quotes) and go about your business.

Continue reading “FM 12 ExecuteSQL: Dynamic Parameters, pt 2” →

ExecuteSQL, Level: Intermediate, SQL, Version: FM 12 or later

FM 12 ExecuteSQL: Dynamic Parameters, pt 1

Kevin Frank

I have a confession: when I first read about dynamic parameters in the Help entry for ExecuteSQL, my initial reaction was, “Why do they have to make it so darn complicated?”

I have another confession: I am now singing a very different tune. I’ll get to the reason for this in a minute, but first let’s compare two ExecuteSQL statements, which were discussed last month in FM 12 ExecuteSQL, part 1.

Continue reading “FM 12 ExecuteSQL: Dynamic Parameters, pt 1” →