It is usually done in other databases by having a "dual-field" key. (Can be more than dual).  This is done by selecting the individual fields to be part of the key.

You can make your own "multi-value" key fields in Sesame now, just by adding a bound field, invisible if you want, definitely ReadOnly, and using that key for your XLU. 

When you change any of the elements that compose the multi-value key, then programming should be set to update the multi-value key.  You should also do some programming to make sure you have a unique value, which is something you would be doing even if you only had a single element key field.

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When you do your XLU from the other database, you can concatenate values, elements, etc. when you decide what to look for. 

Example looking for a multi-key value made up from three different fields that looks like 123-abc-xyz:

vValue = @XLU(@FN,LE1 + "-" + LE7 + "-" + @Right(LE4,3), "FormName!mulit-value key", "SourceElement" )

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Edited from original bad posting that left out the Source Element and some quotes.  Thanks to Bharat_Naik for pointing that out.

Quote:


Are you speaking of adding one more element in the form and value of it to be calculated based on the existing elements?

LastName:
Birthdate:   
KeyField:

KeyField: LastName + Birthdate

Bob, this is understandable.  And that is what exactly we have to do it now, that I pointed out in my initial post. What I am looking for and what is desirable is Not to have to change anything in the form you are looking up value.  One has to be able to do it only by using code.

In the above example, instead of creating external keyfield, having ability to have following.

var vstring as String
vString = ClientLastName + Birthday

vValue = @xlookup (@fn, vString, "Customer!(Name + Birthday)",  "Contact Info")

I see a quite a bit of uses of the above. As I also mentioned, in sesame you can practically achieve anything with various tools available.  Even without creating any change in the external file, that is without creating keyfield and making it invisible, you can have it done creating Array and going through couple of loops, that is I have pointed out in the link

http://www.lantica.com/Forum2/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=gen_disc;action=display...

Yes, it seems very easy that by creating a field you can do that, if you have to do it quite frequently with several databases of application in several places will end up making unnecessary fields if it could be achieved by just simple code.

Quote:


I agree...

And may be, just may be... (I know, I am going out of control here)  accomodation of little code, such as

vValue = @xlookup (@fn, vString, "Customer!(Name + Birthday + @Left (zip, 5))",  "Contact Info")

Is it too much of asking? I hope Erika and Mark are listening.

Thanks Bob.

In the past,  in order to shorten long pickup list, we used @xuserselectr ( ) and used the filter function and loops. But now Sesame Development team gave us @xlookupall ( ) and the same thing can be achieved in just one statement.  They really got us spoiled by giving all those goodies!!!   

It is worthwhile. While it is doable, it requires a large amount of work and increases the complexity of the X-commands by at least an order or magnitude. Being able to query against multiple values inside these commands is something we would like to have. We'll see if this is reasonably doable, and if it is the best method by which to provide this capability.

Cannot seem to find any info as to if this ever became possible? Just so happens I was about to post a similar (if less coherent) question and since this post was from over a year ago, was hoping I might have just overlooked the update & solution.

Thanx
~Natalie

Ah well, I'll keep my fingers crossed
Thanx for the update!

~Natalie