Finding text and characters

Unless you search for phrases or an exact match, the field can contain other values in addition to the one(s) you specify, and the values can be in any order. For example, typing hotel in a field named Accommodation finds records for Hotel, Discount Hotel, and Hotels, Luxury.

To find	Type this in the field	Examples
Words that start with specific Roman characters (works with fields that use any language except Japanese)	The characters	Chris Smith finds Chris Smith, Smith Chris, Chris Smithson, and Smith Christenson
Words that start with Japanese Hiragana, Katakana, or Kanji characters	The characters between = and *	finds , , and
A phrase or sequence of characters that match when they are the first characters in a word (match phrase from word start)	The literal text (characters), including spaces and punctuation, between double quotation marks (")	"Marten and Jones Interiors" finds Marten and Jones Interiors but not Jones and Marten Interiors ", Ltd." finds all companies with ", Ltd." in the name, but not those without the comma “Spring” finds Springville but not ColdSpring Harbor or HotSpring
Words with one or more unknown or variable characters (any one character)	One wildcard character (@) for each unknown character	Gr@y finds Gray and Grey @on finds Don and Ron but not Bron
Invalid characters in a text field	?	Invalid characters display as blank characters Note To find the ? character, search for “?”
Digits in a text field (any one digit)	A # character for each digit	# finds 3 but not 30 ## finds 30 but not 3 or 300 #3 finds 53 and 43 but not 3
Words with zero or more unknown or variable text characters in a row (zero or more characters)	* for all unknown characters	Jon finds Jon and John Jr finds Jr. and Junior phan finds Phan and Stephanie
Operators or other non-alphanumeric characters, such as punctuation or spaces	The literal text (characters), including spaces and punctuation, between double quotation marks (")	"@" finds @ (or an email address, for example) "," finds records containing a comma " " finds three spaces in a row
A character with special meaning, such as the find operators recognized by FileMaker Pro: @, *, #, ?, !, =, <, >, " (escape next character)	\ followed by the special character	\"Joey\" finds "Joey" joey\@abc.net finds the email address joey@abc.net
Words with accented characters	The literal text (characters), including spaces and punctuation, between double quotation marks (")	"òpera" finds òpera but not opera (òpera without quotes finds both òpera and opera)
Partial phrases, a sequence of words or characters (match phrase from anywhere)	Characters, punctuation, and spaces between double quotation marks ("); use * to find this text in the middle of a longer text string	*"son & Phillips" finds Johnson & Phillips and Paulson & Phillips
Exact matches of the text you specify (match entire field)	== (two equal signs) for a field content match	==John finds John but not John Smith ==John Smith finds John Smith but not Smith, John or John Smithers
Exact matches of whole words you specify (match whole word)	=	=Market finds Market, Market Services, and Ongoing Market Research but not Marketing or Supermarket =Chris =Smith finds Chris Smith or Smith Chris but not Chris or Christopher Smithson
Words that contain Japanese Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji characters (Japanese-indexed fields only)	The characters	finds , , and
Kana characters in a Japanese-indexed field without differentiating between Hiragana/Katakana, Voiced/Semi-Voiced/Unvoiced Kana, Small/Regular Kana, and Kana Voiced/Unvoiced Iteration Marks	~ (tilde) and the character, to do a relaxed search	finds , , , , , and

To find

Type this in the field

Examples

Words that start with specific Roman characters (works with fields that use any language except Japanese)

The characters

Chris Smith finds Chris Smith, Smith Chris, Chris Smithson, and Smith Christenson

Words that start with Japanese Hiragana, Katakana, or Kanji characters

The characters between = and *

finds

, and

A phrase or sequence of characters that match when they are the first characters in a word (match phrase from word start)

The literal text (characters), including spaces and punctuation, between double quotation marks (")

"Marten and Jones Interiors" finds Marten and Jones Interiors but not Jones and Marten Interiors

", Ltd." finds all companies with ", Ltd." in the name, but not those without the comma

“Spring” finds Springville but not ColdSpring Harbor or HotSpring

Words with one or more unknown or variable characters (any one character)

One wildcard character (@) for each unknown character

Gr@y finds Gray and Grey

@on finds Don and Ron but not Bron

Invalid characters in a text field

Invalid characters display as blank characters

Note To find the ? character, search for “?”

Digits in a text field (any one digit)

A # character for each digit

# finds 3 but not 30

## finds 30 but not 3 or 300

#3 finds 53 and 43 but not 3

Words with zero or more unknown or variable text characters in a row (zero or more characters)

* for all unknown characters

Jo*n finds Jon and John

J*r finds Jr. and Junior

*phan* finds Phan and Stephanie

Operators or other non-alphanumeric characters, such as punctuation or spaces

The literal text (characters), including spaces and punctuation, between double quotation marks (")

"@" finds @ (or an email address, for example)

"," finds records containing a comma

" " finds three spaces in a row

A character with special meaning, such as the find operators recognized by FileMaker Pro:

@, *, #, ?, !, =, <, >, " (escape next character)

\ followed by the special character

\"Joey\" finds "Joey"
joey\@abc.net finds the email address joey@abc.net

Words with accented characters

The literal text (characters), including spaces and punctuation, between double quotation marks (")

"òpera" finds òpera but not opera

(òpera without quotes finds both òpera and opera)

Partial phrases, a sequence of words or characters (match phrase from anywhere)

Characters, punctuation, and spaces between double quotation marks ("); use * to find this text in the middle of a longer text string

*"son & Phillips" finds

Johnson & Phillips and Paulson & Phillips

Exact matches of the text you specify (match entire field)

== (two equal signs) for a field content match

==John finds John but not John Smith

==John Smith finds John Smith but not Smith, John or John Smithers

Exact matches of whole words you specify (match whole word)

=Market finds Market, Market Services, and Ongoing Market Research but not Marketing or Supermarket

=Chris =Smith finds Chris Smith or Smith Chris but not Chris or Christopher Smithson

Words that contain Japanese Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji characters (Japanese-indexed fields only)

The characters

finds

, and

Kana characters in a Japanese-indexed field without differentiating between Hiragana/Katakana, Voiced/Semi-Voiced/Unvoiced Kana, Small/Regular Kana, and Kana Voiced/Unvoiced Iteration Marks

~ (tilde) and the character, to do a relaxed search

finds

, and

3.	When you’ve entered the find criteria that you want, click Perform Find in the status toolbar, or choose Requests menu > Perform Find.

You can perform case-sensitive and width-sensitive finds on a field by changing the default indexing and sorting language for the field to Unicode. However, this procedure will change the order in which the field sorts. If you do not want the original field to sort in Unicode order, create a calculation field whose formula is simply the field in which you want to perform case-sensitive or width-sensitive finds, and change the default indexing and sorting language of this field to Unicode. Then you can sort one of the fields, and perform find requests on the other. For more information, see Defining field indexing options and Defining calculation fields.