FileMaker Pro 4.1 Mac User's Guide

5-34 FileMaker Pro User’s Guide
Finding duplicate records
In this example, a travel agency uses a registration database to track
clients who sign up for a cruise seminar. The database contains duplicate
records because some clients called the travel agency to sign up and also
mailed in a registration form for the same seminar.
The following sections explain how to set up a database and define a
script to find duplicate records.
Note For this example, you should understand global fields (see
“Defining global fields” on page 2-9) and know how to define fields (see
“Defining database fields” on page 2-3.)
Example step 1: Create a unique value for each record
The Seminar file contains records of clients who register for a seminar.
Each client has a unique identification number, the Client ID field. Some
records contain the same identification number—these are the duplicate
records you want to find.
Tip If your database doesn’t have a unique identification field, define a
calculation field to create one from existing fields. For example,
combine first name, last name, and birthday to create a unique
identification for each client.
Example step 2: Add two fields
Define these fields in the Seminar file:
1 A text field, called Mark. When the script finds a duplicate record, it
places an x in this field to mark the record.
1 A global field, called Global, to store the unique identification while
comparing records. Global should be the same data type as the Client
ID field.
Example step 3: Display the Mark field
Create a layout that displays the Mark field, or add the field to an
existing layout. You’ll use this layout to store Find settings in the
following step.