Developer’s Guide

10-6 Developer’s Guide
A formula for an external function requires two parameters: the
name of the external function to call and the function’s parameter.
10. Replace the word “parameter” with the required parameter for
the function.
See the following table for a description of the Full Example plug-in
functions and their parameters.
11. Continue to build the formula as desired and click OK when
you’re done.
12. Click Done to close the Define Fields dialog box.
Description of the Full Example plug-in’s
external functions
The Full Example plug-in provided in the Microsoft Visual C++ and
Code Warrior Pro example projects adds the following external
functions to FileMaker Pro.
Function’s name
and parameter Description of external function
Xpl-ThisVersion,
“ ” or “P...”
This function returns the version of the plug-in. If the
parameter is “ ”, then the function will return the
version “1.0v1.”
If the parameter begins with the character “P,” the
function will return the version and platform
information.
Note A PluginVersion function is required for every
FileMaker Pro plug-in.
Xpl-BigPI,
“ ”
Returns pi to the 15th significant digit. This function
ignores the parameter and returns a constant value:
“3.1415...”
Xpl-Format,
<a string of
numbers>
This function returns the parameter as a number string
formatted according to the format string specified in the
configuration dialog box (see the previous section,
“Using the Full Example plug-in’s external functions”
on page 10-5).
If the parameter contains more than 20 characters or if
there are more characters than there are # symbols in
the format string, then the function returns a -1. If there
are more # symbols than there are characters in the
number string, then the remaining symbols are replaced
with zeros.
The Xpl-Format function is not designed to handle
strings containing alphabetical characters. For
example, if the parameter is a phone number like
1-800-ABC-DEFG, the function ignores the parameter
format and returns something like [phone].
Xpl-NumWords,
<numbers in a
floating format,
like “44.345”
up to
9,999,999,999.99>
This function returns a number in bank check format,
for example 44.345 returns Forty-Four Dollars and 34
Cents.
All digits beyond the third decimal place and any
alphabetical characters are ignored. If there is more
than one decimal point, the function returns a
-1.