Learning Claris FileMaker

Can you parse out XML data in FileMaker Pro in one step?

If you regularly have to work with XML formatted data in FileMaker Pro®, getting the relevant parts of that data, and putting it into text fields can be a daunting task.

And you would probably say it is impossible to get a node of the XML out in one step as it would need a lot of script steps. But that is not the case if you use a plug-in.

Yes, it can be done!

It can be done if you install Troi Text Plug-in. This plug-in adds a function TrText_XML( ) to your arsenal of tools.

This function allows you to easily parse out a node from XML in one step!

Parsing of XML data

With Troi Text Plug-in you can get XML nodes out of XML formatted text and parse the info into separate fields in your database. You can get the contents of the nodes and child nodes and the attribute data of the nodes.

Set creation

The ANDText, XORText and NOTText functions lets you find all lines that are the same in two text fields, are lines that are different in two text fields and all lines that are in one but not in the other text field.

Lines and Word functions

Troi Text Plug-in's Lines and Word functions let you return:

all unique lines of a text field
all unique words of a text field
all lines in a text field sorted alphabetically
the n-th line of a text field. No difficult calculations to get it, just ask for it!

SumText function

The SumText function creates a dynamic field that concatenates all text from a field in a related file.

Every time records get added to the related file the SumText is automatically updated.

It is the text equivalent of the Sum() function.
Please note that FileMaker Pro now has a List() function, which provides much of this functionality.

We have left the SumText function in to keep the plug-in backward compatible.