[FX.php List] Showing last related record - sort in FM or just PHP?

[Joel Shapiro]

Thanks Dan...

> the fmp wpe doesn't care if you put related fields in a portal or  
> not; it will return all related records to the FX.php result data  
> whether you put the related field in a portal or not. so, putting a  
> related field in a portal doesn't modify the data set.

well that's a bummer (but certainly good to know)

>
> my best advice, sort in fmp in the relationship definition.

but if the WPE will spit back *all* related records regardless,  
wouldn't it be faster to have FM return all the data unsorted and do  
the sorting within PHP?

>
>  if you want to get really trick and you are sure you only ever  
> need one (most recent) record you can make a calc field that just  
> returns the last record. that way PHP doesn't have to transform a  
> bunch of XML data that you'll never use.

I've heard it's optimal to not have calc fields on the web layout if  
possible (for speed), but do you think that in this case it could  
still be faster than returning all related records?


Thanks very much,
-Joel


>
> however, there is a potential flaw in that the most recently  
> created record may not be the one you want to display. that is, if  
> you have some reason to have to force creation of a record after  
> the fact you may end up displaying the wrong record because your  
> sort order wasn't determined correctly (logically defined using  
> some other method rather than creation date). my advice is to use  
> some other sort definition like a separate field that you can  
> modify to define the sort order of your records explicitly.
>
> dan
>
> On Oct 16, 2006, at 6:22 PM, Joel Shapiro wrote:
>
>> Hi all
>>
>> I need to pull the last (most recent) related record for each of a  
>> set of found records.  I'm wondering about the best / most  
>> efficient way to do this.
>>
>> (a)
>>   - create a relationship in FM that sorts in reverse order,
>>   - place related fields on web layout -- No portal
>>
>> (b)
>>    - create a relationship in FM w/ no sort order,
>>    - place portal (w/ fields) on web layout,
>>    - in php, don't use foreach, so display only last returned (or  
>> use sort() in php)
>>
>> It seems like a choice between needing FM to sort each found  
>> record's related records (before sending to the web), VS. pulling  
>> in potentially a lot of related records per each found record,  
>> only to need just the last of each.
>>
>> I'm guessing it's better to sort in FM (option a) and just pull  
>> one related record for each parent found, but does anyone have  
>> experience w/ this (or an opinion ;) ?
>>
>> Notes:
>> - I can't just find the related child records because some of the  
>> found parent records may not have child records, and I need to  
>> show them anyway.
>> - Most queries will pull fewer than 10 parent records, though a  
>> few may find around 40.
>>
>> TIA,
>> -Joel
>>
>>
>> Joel Shapiro - FileMaker Pro Database Design
>> ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
>> joelshapiro at jsfmp dot com
>> http://www.jsfmp.com
>> 415-269-5055
>>
>>
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