empty field

[David Thompson]

>I tried the following entry in the Find/Select dialog and it selected 
>the records that were not empty and not zero.
>
>FieldName NotEqual  (nothing in the value box)  AND FieldName NotEqual 0
>
>Then what is not selected is the group of records that are empty or 
>equal to zero. From your first email I believe this is what you are 
>trying to achieve.

No, what she was trying to do was to find a 
simple way to tell the difference between an 
empty cell, and a cell that contained the number 
0. Both have a value of 0, so testing them for 
numerical value doesn't work. The procedure she 
was using actually works. It's just complex and 
slow. She was looking for something that would be 
simpler and quicker.

If you had simply used

FieldName NotEqual  (nothing in the value box)

or if you had just used

FieldName NotEqual 0

you would have gotten exactly the same result 
that you did when you used them both together, 
because they are the same condition. They are 
either both true or they are both false. If, 
immediately after doing the Find/Select, you 
choose Formula Find/Select...,  you will see the 
formula that was used. In this case it would read

FieldName <> 0 AND FieldName <> 0

The problem she was trying to solve is one that 
has come up numerous times on this list. The 
solutions are to use either the sizeof( function 
to see if the cell has content, or to use the 
exportcell( function to see if it displays as a 
blank in a data cell. My preference is to use 
sizeof( because I think there is probably less 
overhead involved for Panorama.

Dave