U.M. (Windows)

2-14 FileMaker Pro User’s Guide
The values you calculate can come from all field types. You can produce
different values in a summary field, depending on whether you’re
browsing all or some of the records, whether records have been sorted,
and where you place the summary field on the layout.
The formula’s result can be text, number, date, time, or container. The
result of a calculation depends on the field type of the values it calculates
and whether the field type is calculation or summary.
A formula contains one or more parts arranged in a particular order
(called syntax) that determines the values to use and the operations to
perform to produce the result you want. The following sections explain
each formula part and its syntax.
Important In the United States, commas act as list separators in
functions, formulas, and calculations. In other countries, semicolons
might be used as list separators. The separator that is used depends on
the operating system your computer uses, as well as the one used when
the file was created.
Expressions
An expression is a value or any computation that produces a value.
Expressions can be combined to produce other expressions.
Constants
A constant is a fixed value that’s part of the formula and doesn’t change
from record to record. A constant can be text, or a number, date, or time,
like the text value “Europe” or the numeric value 0.05.
Type of expression Example
Text constant "London"
Number constant 2.15
Field reference TaxRate
Function Length(ShipToAddress)
Combination of expressions ((Total–Discount)*TaxRate)/100