[FX.php List] About scripts

[Dale Bengston]

Hi Jonathan,

If you're doing this with anything past v6, I would suggest pointing  
your FX query at the child table(s), pulling the parent record data  
through the child records, and using PHP to aggregate it all for  
display. No scripts or calc fields necessary.

Hope this helps,
Dale

On Sep 25, 2006, at 7:55 PM, Jonathan Schwartz wrote:

> Thanks for the heads up.  I think that I'll steer clear of scripts  
> and go with Plan B.. or perhaps Plan C. ;-)
>
> Here's the run down...
>
> This is Ver2 of my first fx project, a school directory. There is a  
> Households table, a Contacts (parents) table and a Students table.  
> Finally, there is a Family table, which sits on top of the three  
> other tables.  It is summary data from the Family table that is  
> desired.  The data desired is compilation of the each Households  
> and the Contacts and Students associated with each.  In short...  
> names and addresses of who lives where.
>
> In ver1 of this project, I used a completely flat file.  All data  
> was on one table. It was easy to implement in fx.  After the users  
> did their data entry and edits, I split the data into the multiple  
> tables.  But, that pulled the plug on any further data entry into  
> the online system, once the data was exported.
>
> This year, in ver 2, I went the "high road" and implemented a  
> relational system where data is entered directly into the various  
> tables by online entry.  However, the challenge is how to pull the  
> data back into the Families table (in real time) so that the user  
> can proof read the result
>
> Plan A was to use a series of scripts which pulled the data from  
> the related tables up into the Family table.  I planned to run the  
> script once all the edits were complete.  Per my earlier post, I'm  
> getting flaky results with the the scripts.
>
> Plan B could be just to use calc fields to extract the table data  
> from each table.  With a max of 2 households, 2 contacts per  
> household and up to 5 students per house (yup!), the calcs are finite.
>
> Your email prompted a third option, Plan C: to interrogate the  
> tables in php with For Each loops and extract the data that way.  
> Perhaps create an array for each table and then populate the Family  
> values from the arrays.  Or, just populate the data right into the  
> desired fields as the data is processed. See end result below:
>
> Students	Stu1	Stu2	Stu3	Stu4	Stu5...
>
> Household1
> 	Street1	City1	State1	Zip1 Phone1
> 	ContactFirst1	ContactLast1	ContactEmail1	ContactCell1
> 	ContactFirst2	ContactLast2	ContactEmail2	ContactCel2
>
> Household2
> 	Street2	City2	State2	Zip2 Phone2
> 	ContactFirst3	etc
> 	ContactFirst4	etc
>
> Think that I'll try it now...;-)
>
> Will yell if I have trouble.
>
> Jonathan
>
>
>
>> my advice about using scripts was because of performance issues.  
>> it blocks access to all FMP WPE for all other requests for as long  
>> as the script runs. as far as performance flaws goes, there is  
>> some getting used to calling scripts because of the fact that  
>> multiple requests to the db through FX (as in not using prefind  
>> for instance) are not treated the same way with reference to  
>> globals - FMP global fields  are cleared (reset to default) each  
>> new FX request.
>>
>> you're probably better off doing whatever you are trying to do in  
>> PHP anyway... can you spell it out and maybe someone here can give  
>> you a tip?
>>
>> dan
>>
>> On Sep 25, 2006, at 7:40 PM, Jonathan Schwartz wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> I'v heard recent advice not use scripts.  I'm not sure if it was  
>>> because of performance slowdowns or performance flaws.
>>>
>>
>>
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>
>
> -- 
>
> Jonathan Schwartz
> FileMaker 8 Certified  Developer
> Associate Member, FileMaker Solutions Alliance
> Schwartz & Company
> jonathan at eschwartz.com
> http://www.eschwartz.com
> http://www.exit445.com
> 415-381-1852
>
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