OK, FM has cost us all lots of hours of work by changing the rules of
various little things like, you konw, the most common script step
ever, for instance. And small things like being able to lock yourself
out of a record--that's fun stuff, and making windows not open the
same way they used to, all in the name of progress or something...

But I just found out they broke stuff in Find too.

Today's problem is that my users can no longer search for their data
that might contain "FC#03" because the number (pound) sign (#) is now
used to represent "a digit" in the find.

So I tried the following:

FC@03
"FC#03"

neither one works. No records are found. Is there any way to search
for data that has a pound sign in it now?

The pound sign has always represented a digit in find mode. Finds on
special characters are effected by the change (ummm...just over 3 years
ago) to unicode characters and indexing. I haven't tested, but your
finds should work if wrapped in quotes or if indexing on that one field
is changed to ASCII.

Paul Bruneau wrote:

Thanks for the reply, but I find it erroneous.

I just opened up FM 6 (my previous version) and there is no # listed
as a special Find character, so "always" was stretching it. It may
have appeared as a special Find character in FM 7, but I don't know
since I skipped that version since it didn't offer me enough to make
it worth my while. (but thanks for the "ummmm...", it made me feel
special, warm and fuzzy inside).

I will try indexing the field as ASCII when I get back to work, but I
am not hopeful since # is now a special Find character in v8.

"Paul Bruneau" <paul (AT) ethicalpaul (DOT) com> schreef in bericht
news:1179625540.682462.285740 (AT) p47g2000hsd (DOT) googlegroups.com...
Paul, Not really a solution, but a work-around. It might just do the trick.
For the field that contains the # create a calculation where the # are
substituted by any code you like. MySearch <text > substitute (MyField ; "#"
; "[NumberSign]" )
Now let the user enter the search words in a global field gSearch. He hits a
search button. This starts a scipt that
Find MySearch ; substitute (gField ; "#" ; "[NumberSign]"

This searches for the changed values rather then the orriginal ones.

Keep well, Ursus

I just tested in 8.5 and a search for "HS#85" works fine when surrounded
by quotes in find mode, regardless of what the field's indexing is set
to. I was mistaken in thinking '#' was a valid find symbol in FM6; I
just checked and it was not. I was also mistaken to say that ASCII
indexing is available in FM8; it no longer is, and the newer unicode
indexing is said to behave the same way as the old ASCII. This,
however, will not find the pound character unless it is wrapped in quotes.

Paul Bruneau wrote:

Thanks Ursus, that's an ugly one with more overhead than I am looking
for (compared to it just working before), but I think that would work--
I may be forced to use it.

On May 20, 7:38 pm, Howard Schlossberg
<how... (AT) nospam (DOT) fmprosolutions.com> wrote:
Thank you Howard, I'll give that a try. I think I'm going to be still
in trouble though because those darn users are searching for HS#85 in
order to find
HS#8529383
HS#8511228
HS#8599492
etc

so I think the quotes are going to kill me.

I truly appreciate your time and effort Howard, I think my last
response was more snipy than it should have been, I'm sorry about that.

"Paul Bruneau" <paul (AT) ethicalpaul (DOT) com> schreef in bericht
news:1179754548.294262.42610 (AT) x18g2000prd (DOT) googlegroups.com...
Paul,

Again this could be worked around, but a little more easy then previous
solution.

Create a gFind (global text) field
let the user enter whatever they need (eg HS#85)
create a script the puts the quotes around and a * after the last quote (it
reads "HS#85"*)
and perform this search in the original field. No extra calc needed. Just a
button to push for the user, might that be acceptable?

Keep well, Ursus

Hi, yes, that is going to work, but I will do it a little differently.

First I note that Howard's thought that the search should completely
work with quotes around it (even to find longer strings than entered
in the find field) does indeed work. I thought I had tried and it had
failed, but I must have fouled something up.

So I can search for:

"HS#85"

(including the quotes)

to find: HS#85123434

So I already have a special find layout and I already take the users
into a Find script (with a pause in Find mode), so what I can do is
just add the quotes to the field after the pause while still in Find
mode, then complete the find as I normally would. No global is
necessary.

Thanks all, this one is tamed