Help

Finding, sorting, and replacing data
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ILEMAKER PRO HELP 128
To cancel a sort operation before it is finished:
Press Esc (Windows) or Command-period (OS X).
Notes
• Data sorts differently in different field types:
• Automatic record sorting:
• occurs when changes to records are committed
• does not occur while scripts are running or paused
• Records in a sorted portal are re-sorted whenever the relationship is re-established. (For
example, when you browse out of and then back into the record, or change the value in the
match field.) See Creating portals to display related records.
• Repeating fields sort by the value in the first repetition. See Defining repeating fields.
• If you import records from another file into a sorted file, the records are not automatically
sorted. Instead, the status toolbar shows Semi-sorted. Sort again to incorporate new
records in the sort order.
• System formats affect the way numbers, dates, and times sort. See Opening files with
different system formats.
• When you define a text field, the default language for indexing and sorting text is
determined by the operating system on which FileMaker Pro is running. If you want to
override the default language for a sort, select Override field's language for sort in the
Sort Records dialog box. (If you want to permanently change the field's default language,
select the field in the Manage Database dialog box, click Options, then click the Storage
tab and select the default language from the pop-up menu.) See
Defining field indexing
options.
• You can open another window in order to perform different sort requests on the same data.
See
Opening multiple windows per file.
• If you open a file, sort records, and then close the file, the sort order is not saved. For more
information about when a database file is saved, see
Saving and copying files.
• You can sort using a “default” language setting or Unicode to have FileMaker Pro ignore
language-based sorting rules. See
Choosing a language for indexing or sorting.
• The longest text string that FileMaker Pro will sort is 100 characters.
This field type Sorts data in this order
Tex t Alphabetically. Numbers sort by character position. (Example of an ascending sort:
1, 11, 2.) Numbers sort before letters. Non-alphanumeric values before the first
word are ignored (unless you change the sort language to
Unicode).
Number Numerically. Non-numeric characters are ignored.
Date Chronologically.
Time Numerically. Times using AM/PM are sorted according to their 24-hour-clock
equivalent (for example, 8:00 PM is 20:00).
Timestamp Chronologically. Times using AM/PM are sorted according to their 24-hour-clock
equivalent (for example, 8:00 PM is 20:00).