Summary List As Relational Predicate, part 2 | FileMakerHacks

Kevin Frank shares part two of an incredibly fast way to isolate a found set of records using FileMaker 13’s Summary Field List option and using it as a relational predicate:

Last week we looked at a technique to allow a summary field to be used as a relational predicate, directly, i.e., without the need to use a “helper field” as a predicate. If you’re not comfortable employing an undocumented hack in your solutions, I encourage you to read on anyway, because what you’re about to see may still be worth doing, whether you use last week’s method, or the safer (but a bit slower) “helper field” approach as delineated here on FileMaker Hacks last year in Summary List Fields in FM 13, part 1.

We’ve established that a summary list field can be used as a relational predicate (either directly or indirectly); the aim of today’s article and demo file, FM-13-Summary-List-As-Predicate, is to offer a compelling reason to do so.

This method is substantially faster over a WAN, LAN or on a local file.  There’s a downloadable example file and more info at the link.

Summary List As Relational Predicate, part 2 | FileMakerHacks.

And as a bonus, be sure to check out this update (with download) from Frank about yet another way based on a technique that’s been around since FileMaker 3.