Scripting: How to clear Data from all your Fields

How to remove Data from Groups of Fields

Find out how to create a new FileMaker Pro database by ‎making a copy of an existing database without carrying ‎forward all the old data.‎

By By Chris Moyer, The Moyer Group CEO and FileMaker Advisor ‎technical editor, and Bob Bowers, Soliant Consulting CEO and ‎FileMaker Advisor contributing editor

First, if you're looking for a scripting solution to clear out ‎the data in a large set of fields, you'll want a solution that ‎doesn't require you to explicitly reference each field to be ‎cleared out. The best way to do this is to use the Go to Next ‎Field step to simply walk through all the fields on a layout, ‎clearing them as you go.‎

Say you want to clear out FieldA, FieldB, and FieldC. Create a ‎new Standard form layout and add just these fields to the ‎layout. (You can also simply add all the fields, then remove the ‎ones you don't need; that may be easier than selecting the ones ‎you want.) Be sure not to alter or otherwise mess with the tab ‎order on the layout. You can then use this script to cycle ‎through and clear the fields:‎

Go to Next Field

Set Field [gTemp , Get (ActiveFieldName)]

Loop

• Clear [Select] ‎

• Go to Next Field ‎

• Exit Loop If [Get (ActiveFieldName) = gTemp] ‎

End Loop ‎

This script works fine in earlier versions of FileMaker. Just use ‎Status (CurrentFieldName) in place of Get (ActiveFieldName).‎

Regardless of how many fields you have on the layout, this ‎script simply jumps from field to field until it has completed a ‎cycle of all the fields in the tab order. It "knows" when it's ‎arrived back to the top because you store the first field's name ‎in a global field at the top of the script. Note there's no field ‎name specified for the Clear step -- it simply operates on the ‎currently active field.‎

The script above clears data from a single record. If you want ‎to clear the data from your entire database, you could find ‎all records and loop through them one-by-one, or you could ‎use the Replace script step instead of Clear. Whatever method ‎you use, you want to be sure you're the only user in the ‎database when the script actually runs because record-‎locking conflicts can cause the script to halt or prevent data ‎from being cleared.‎

There's another way you can approach this problem. Make a ‎clone of the database, thus clearing out all your previous ‎year's data. Then import just the employee names (and any ‎other pertinent data) from the old file. The scripting solution ‎is the way to go when you can't easily get physical access to ‎the files to make a clone, but if that doesn't seem to be an issue ‎for you, cloning and importing should be a fast and easy ‎solution.