I'm experiencing a very odd problem when migrating databases from FMP5
to FMP7 in a Windows XP environment. If a text field in the FMP5 source
database contains the half symbol "½" [ALT-171 on a standard US
keyboard], it imports as a blank field when I open it in FMP7. In other
words, if a field in the FMP5 contains the text "He only earns 5½
dollars per hour", it will be blank in the FMP7 database.

Some further info on this:
- if the field contains manually formatted text, only the segment of
text with the same formatting as the half symbol doesn't import: thus,
if in "He only earns 5½ dollars per hour" the words "5½ dollars" are
underlined, the imported field will read "He only earns per hour".
- if I do a bulk conversion, there's no record of this problem in the
conversion log
- the problem doesn't occur when I export the text from FMP5 into a
plain text format such as tabbed text and then reimport it into FMP7;
however, since many of the databases I manage have complicated field
structures, including many fields with line breaks in them, this isn't a
viable workaround
- there's also no problem cutting and pasting the symbol from FMP5 into
FMP7 (though of course all the manual formatting gets lost)
- though the usual hex code for the half symbol is 0xBD, FMP5 stores the
half symbol as 0xF0, which I notice is a code also used in the FMP5 file
structure itself; I wonder if this is what's causing the glitch
- I've reproduced the behaviour on three different machines

This issue has been a real problem for me: since the databases I manage
only occasionally contain this symbol, I didn't recognize that some
fields were blank until well after I'd migrated; I then had to spend a
long time searching all the old FMP5 databases for records containing
the symbol, so I could manually reimport the affected fields. If anyone
has any ideas on this, or can even tell me if they've experienced the
same problem, it'd be very much appreciated.

- Don

Don Fyson wrote:
I can replicate the same problem upon conversion to FM7. I had never
noticed this until now, so I'm grateful that you've pointed it out. If
you haven't already done so, I'd suggest you report the problem (just as
you have it in your email) to
<http://filemaker.com/company/product/problems.html>.

I am hopeful that FileMaker is aware of the problem and that it will be
fixed in future versions.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Howard Schlossberg (818) 883-2846
FM Pro Solutions Los Angeles, California

FileMaker 7 Certified Developer
Associate Member, FileMaker Solutions Alliance

Thanks for confirming the problem! I did indeed fill out the bug report
form; and I really hope that Filemaker fixes it soon, because until
then, it's a major headache for both myself and many of my colleagues
who also use the symbol occasionally when retranscribing historical
documents.

Don

Howard Schlossberg wrote: