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Finding, sorting, and replacing data
F
ILEMAKER PRO HELP 124
Finding the wrong date
• The date field may not contain dates entered in a valid date format. This can happen, for
example, if the dates were imported.
• The date entered in the find request may be in an invalid format. For information on finding
dates, see Finding numbers, dates, times, and timestamps and Finding ranges of
information.
• Dates might not have been entered with four-digit years and thus could be inadvertently
placed in a different century than you intended, either in the find request or during data
entry. To avoid confusion when entering dates, always use four-digit years. See
Conversion
of dates with two-digit years.
• The dates might not be in field that uses the date type (or a calculation field that returns a
date result).
• Check the system formats currently and previously used.
• If the file was converted from a previous FileMaker Pro version, it’s possible that your date
data is using a date separator that is no longer supported. (FileMaker
Pro no longer allows
the month, day, and year to be separated by an alphabetic character or the time separator.)
If your dates use an invalid date separator, use one of the following methods to manually edit
date data that uses alphabetic characters or the time separator:
• Choose Edit menu > Find/Replace.
• Use the Substitute function. For example:
Before conversion, use: Substitute(DateField,”:”,”/”)
After conversion, use: Substitute(DateField;”:”;”/”) .
Finding is slow
Finds might take longer than usual in:
• fields that are not stored or indexed. To see if a field is stored and indexed: choose File
menu
> Manage > Database and click the Fields tab. Select the field, click Options, then
click Storage.
• searches on related fields.
• searches in networked files.
If a file is shared and it contains global fields, you may be able to improve the performance of certain
client find requests by moving some global fields into a separate table. See the Notes section in
Defining global fields (fields with global storage).
Results vary when using wild cards in an external ODBC data source
When you do searches in an external ODBC data source using wild cards, your results might vary
from wildcard searches in FileMaker
Pro.
Related topics
Finding records
Saving a find request