ExecuteSQL – Taming the Beast | A Filemaker Miscellany

ExecuteSQL – Taming the Beast

I’ve been getting to grips with the ExecuteSQL function.  To say that I’ve been enjoying it would be partly true – but it can be a little tricky, not without its frustrations, and disappointing in its performance.  BUT, I’m beginning to see just how powerful and useful it could be.  There are a couple of excellent resources that I’ve found very useful:  one is Filemaker Hacks – Kevin Frank’s articles about ExecuteSQL on his blog are excellent. Kevin writes so clearly, and presents the material so well, that even when he’s repeating stuff that I already know (which isn’t often!), it’s a delight to read his articles.  Of particular relevance here are:

Also, Beverley Voth’s “The Missing Filemaker 12 ExcecuteSQL Reference” – there’s a link to this on FilemakerHacks too – here.

Here are some examples of expressions using the function:

Basic List of Field Contents

ExecuteSQL ( “SELECT nameFirst FROM PPL WHERE nameLast = ‘Smith’ ” ; “” ; “” )

This will give a list of the first names of people whose last name is Smith.  A couple of things that tripped me up, even at this basic stage:

  • “PPL” is a table occurrence, not a base table name.
  • ‘Smith’ is case sensitive.

To get around the case sensitivity issue, I’ve started changing all text to lower case within the expression, e.g.

ExecuteSQL ( “SELECT nameFirst FROM PPL WHERE LOWER(nameLast) = ‘smith’ ” ; “” ; “” )

ExecuteSQL – Taming the Beast | A Filemaker Miscellany.

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