Hi --

I'm working with a database of films where it will be natural to want to
print up lists of films alphabetically by title, using the traditional
conventions of not considering small articles like "A, And, or The" --
and various foreign-language versions of those words!-- when
alphabetizing.

Is there a standard method of schieving this in Filemaker without
entering the titles themselves in the clunky "Grapes of Wrath, The"
format to begin with? (Because of course there are other layouts where
displaying the simple "The Grapes of Wrath" will be needed).

In the MARC cataloguing system, there is a way to designate which title
character to begin with for Alphabetizing purposes. For instance "The
Grapes of Wrath" would get a "5" since "G" is the first alphabetically
significant character. THen you'd employ this number in some sort of
hairy scripts to alphabetize the list?

I guess another approach would be to have two fields for the title, the
first containing any of the pesky little articles and the second
beginning with the first significant word ("Grapes"). This seems clunky.

Is there a source anywhere that offers a thorough overview of
Alphabetizing in FMP? I'd think this is a fairly common hurdle....

Any pointers appreciated.

bestm,
albert

In article <asteg-7E5BCE.09472622102006 (AT) news (DOT) west.earthlink.net>,
Albert <asteg (AT) mindspring (DOT) com> wrote:

Fairly common, yes, to anyone wanting to alphabetize titles as you
describe. I would consider sorting on anything but the first word of a
field a fairly specialized use.

I have routinely created a second field to act as the real sort criteria
in such cases:

RealSort =
If (
LeftWords ( Title ; 1 ) = "A" or
LeftWords ( Title ; 1 ) ="The" ) ;
MiddleWords ( Title ; 2 ; 99) ;
Title
)

Once the calc field defined, it's done, and nobody has to see it.

Matt

In article <Im-FA0C70.13530322102006 (AT) news (DOT) verizon.net>, Matt Wills
<Im (AT) Witz (DOT) End> wrote:

The other thing to decide on is whether you want title staring with a
number (eg. "2001 A Spacve Odyssey" or "101 Dalmations") to be sorted
as:

- a number with all numbers appearing in their own section
before 'A'.
ie. "2001"

- words within the appropriate letter section,
ie. "Two Thousand..." and "One Hundred..."

or - a number within their word letter sections (not used very often),
eg. "2001" appearing at the top of the 'T' section and
"101" appearing at the top of the 'O' section.


You may also have the problem of non-English letters with accent marks
or non-Roman characters.


Both of these can of course be worked around by adding a bit more
calculation to the "RealSort" field above.


Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)