User manual

Chapter 3 | Creating databases 57
1 Use _ (underscore) in place of a space to avoid restrictions in ODBC (Open Database
Connectivity) or JDBC (Java Database Connectivity), exporting, web publishing, and other
operations.
1 If you’re exchanging data with another application, check the field naming restrictions in the file
formats supported by the other application.
1 If you’re using ODBC or JDBC to share FileMaker Pro data, avoid using SQL keywords in field
names.
About choosing a field type
When you define a field, you select a field type based on the kind of information the field will
contain. The field type determines what kind of data can be entered and what kinds of operations
FileMaker
Pro can perform with the data. FileMaker Pro uses the field type to interpret the data for
tasks like sorting records and performing calculations.
Select this
field type If the field data will be
Text Up to approximately 1 billion letters, symbols, and/or numbers used as text per field repetition,
limited by available RAM and disk space. Indexes nominally based on the first 100 characters
of each word or value. Text fields may contain carriage returns.
Number Values up to 800 digits or other characters, and the negative values of the same range. Number
fields can also contain Boolean values (0 or 1), to indicate, for example, true, false, yes, and no.
Number fields can’t contain carriage returns.
Date Dates only. Uses the Gregorian calendar with a range of 1/1/0001...12/31/4000. Month, day,
and year order is based on system settings when the file is created.
Time Times only. A time field can contain the hours, minutes, and seconds portion of a time. A time
field can contain a negative time duration, for example,-08:40:00.
Timestamp Dates and times to reference a fixed point in calendar time. For example, 10/25/2014 2:39:46 AM
Container A file of any type, such as a picture, a PDF, or a multimedia file. You can set up storage and
display options for the field. You can reference container fields in calculations and summary
fields. You can't find or sort records based on container fields, but you can define text fields to
describe or identify them. Then, you can find or sort records based on the description or
identifying number in the text field. Files in container fields can be embedded, stored as a
reference, or stored externally.
Calculation The result of a calculation formula that uses field values from the current record or related
records. The formula can use values of all field types. The result can be one of these types of
data: text, number, date, time, timestamp, or container.
Summary A value that’s produced by summarizing field values from more than one record in the same table.