Chapter 4. Field Types and Import/Export Formats

Besides just knowing the raw statistics and capacities of your software tools (“speeds and feeds,” as the machinists like to say), it’s wise to understand the basic data formats with which your database software can work. This chapter gives a brief overview of each of the underlying FileMaker field data types and also discusses the various data formats available for import and export.

First, a word about data types in FileMaker. Unlike certain other database engines, FileMaker is somewhat forgiving about data types. You can add text characters to a number field, for example, without FileMaker stopping you. The price you pay for this flexibility is the possibility that you’ll make a mistake or permit ...

Get FileMaker® 12 Developers Reference: Functions, Scripts, Commands, and Grammars now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.