Have you ever been deleting a few records in a FileMaker database and got annoyed but constantly clicking Delete on the confirmation dialog?

Well if you are sure you want to delete a record and don’t want the confirmation, you can just hold down the Shift key (Option key on Mac) when clicking delete and hey presto!  No confirmation, the record will be deleted instantly.

But be careful, ‘With great power comes great responsibility!’

This is a list of all of the FileMaker Error Codes you may come across. If you use ‘Set Error Capture [On]‘ you can then use Get(LastError) to check for certain errors and perform actions based on them.

For example after performing a find, if you check for Error 401 (No records match the request) that means the search didn’t find anything so you can show a nice friendly message to the user and return them to where they came from etc.

Error Number Description

-1              Unknown error
0               No error
1               User canceled action
2               Memory error
3               Command is unavailable (for example, wrong operating system, wrong mode, etc.)
4               Command is unknown
5               Command is invalid (for example, a Set Field script step does not have a calculation specified)
6               File is read-only
7               Running out of memory
8               Empty result
9               Insufficient privileges
10              Requested data is missing
11              Name is not valid
12              Name already exists
13              File or object is in use
14              Out of range
15              Can’t divide by zero
16              Operation failed, request retry (for example, a user query)
17              Attempt to convert foreign character set to UTF-16 failed
18              Client must provide account information to proceed
19              String contains characters other than A-Z, a-z, 0-9 (ASCII)
100             File is missing
101             Record is missing
102             Field is missing
103             Relationship is missing
104             Script is missing
105             Layout is missing
106             Table is missing
107             Index is missing
108             Value list is missing
109             Privilege set is missing
110             Related tables are missing
111             Field repetition is invalid
112             Window is missing
113             Function is missing
114             File reference is missing
115             Specified menu set is not present
116             Specified layout object is not present
117             Specified data source is not present
130             Files are damaged or missing and must be reinstalled
131             Language pack files are missing (such as template files)
200             Record access is denied
201             Field cannot be modified
202             Field access is denied
203             No records in file to print, or password doesn’t allow print access
204             No access to field(s) in sort order
205             User does not have access privileges to create new records; import will overwrite existing data
206             User does not have password change privileges, or file is not modifiable
207             User does not have sufficient privileges to change database schema, or file is not modifiable
208             Password does not contain enough characters
209             New password must be different from existing one
210             User account is inactive
211             Password has expired
212             Invalid user account and/or password. Please try again
213             User account and/or password does not exist
214             Too many login attempts
215             Administrator privileges cannot be duplicated
216             Guest account cannot be duplicated
217             User does not have sufficient privileges to modify administrator account
300             File is locked or in use
301             Record is in use by another user
302             Table is in use by another user
303             Database schema is in use by another user
304             Layout is in use by another user
306             Record modification ID does not match
400             Find criteria are empty
401             No records match the request
402             Selected field is not a match field for a lookup
403             Exceeding maximum record limit for trial version of FileMaker Pro
404             Sort order is invalid
405             Number of records specified exceeds number of records that can be omitted
406             Replace/Reserialize criteria are invalid
407             One or both match fields are missing (invalid relationship)
408             Specified field has inappropriate data type for this operation
409             Import order is invalid
410             Export order is invalid
412             Wrong version of FileMaker Pro used to recover file
413             Specified field has inappropriate field type
414             Layout cannot display the result
415             One or more required related records are not available
416             Primary key required from data source table
417             Database is not supported for ODBC operations
500             Date value does not meet validation entry options
501             Time value does not meet validation entry options
502             Number value does not meet validation entry options
503             Value in field is not within the range specified in validation entry options
504             Value in field is not unique as required in validation entry options
505             Value in field is not an existing value in the database file as required in validation entry options
506             Value in field is not listed on the value list specified in validation entry option
507             Value in field failed calculation test of validation entry option
508             Invalid value entered in Find mode
509             Field requires a valid value
510             Related value is empty or unavailable
511             Value in field exceeds maximum number of allowed characters
512             Record was already modified by another user
513             Record must have a value in some field to be created
600             Print error has occurred
601             Combined header and footer exceed one page
602             Body doesn’t fit on a page for current column setup
603             Print connection lost
700             File is of the wrong file type for import
706             EPSF file has no preview image
707             Graphic translator cannot be found
708             Can’t import the file or need color monitor support to import file
709             QuickTime movie import failed
710             Unable to update QuickTime reference because the database file is read-only
711             Import translator cannot be found
714             Password privileges do not allow the operation
715             Specified Excel worksheet or named range is missing
716             A SQL query using DELETE, INSERT, or UPDATE is not allowed for ODBC import
717             There is not enough XML/XSL information to proceed with the import or export
718             Error in parsing XML file (from Xerces)
719             Error in transforming XML using XSL (from Xalan)
720             Error when exporting; intended format does not support repeating fields
721             Unknown error occurred in the parser or the transformer
722             Cannot import data into a file that has no fields
723             You do not have permission to add records to or modify records in the target table
724             You do not have permission to add records to the target table
725             You do not have permission to modify records in the target table
726             There are more records in the import file than in the target table. Not all records were imported
727             There are more records in the target table than in the import file. Not all records were updated
729             Errors occurred during import. Records could not be imported
730             Unsupported Excel version. (Convert file to Excel 7.0 (Excel 95), Excel 97, 2000, or XP format and try again)
731             The file you are importing from contains no data
732             This file cannot be inserted because it contains other files
733             A table cannot be imported into itself
734             This file type cannot be displayed as a picture
735             This file type cannot be displayed as a picture. It will be inserted and displayed as a file
736             Too much data to export to this format. It will be truncated
800             Unable to create file on disk
801             Unable to create temporary file on System disk
802             Unable to open file
803             File is single user or host cannot be found
804             File cannot be opened as read-only in its current state
805             File is damaged; use Recover command
806             File cannot be opened with this version of FileMaker Pro
807             File is not a FileMaker Pro file or is severely damaged
808             Cannot open file because access privileges are damaged
809             Disk/volume is full
810             Disk/volume is locked
811             Temporary file cannot be opened as FileMaker Pro file
813             Record Synchronization error on network
814             File(s) cannot be opened because maximum number is open
815             Couldn’t open lookup file
816             Unable to convert file
817             Unable to open file because it does not belong to this solution
819             Cannot save a local copy of a remote file
820             File is in the process of being closed
821             Host forced a disconnect
822             FMI files not found; reinstall missing files
823             Cannot set file to single-user, guests are connected
824             File is damaged or not a FileMaker file
900             General spelling engine error
901             Main spelling dictionary not installed
902             Could not launch the Help system
903             Command cannot be used in a shared file
905             No active field selected; command can only be used if there is an active field
906             Current file must be shared in order to use this command
920             Can’t initialize the spelling engine
921             User dictionary cannot be loaded for editing
922             User dictionary cannot be found
923             User dictionary is read-only
951             An unexpected error occurred (*)
954             Unsupported XML grammar (*)
955             No database name (*)
956             Maximum number of database sessions exceeded (*)
957             Conflicting commands (*)
958             Parameter missing (*)
1200            Generic calculation error
1201            Too few parameters in the function
1202            Too many parameters in the function
1203            Unexpected end of calculation
1204            Number, text constant, field name or “(” expected
1205            Comment is not terminated with “*/”
1206            Text constant must end with a quotation mark
1207            Unbalanced parenthesis
1208            Operator missing, function not found or “(” not expected
1209            Name (such as field name or layout name) is missing
1210            Plug-in function has already been registered
1211            List usage is not allowed in this function
1212            An operator (for example, +, -, *) is expected here
1213            This variable has already been defined in the Let function
1214            AVERAGE, COUNT, EXTEND, GETREPETITION, MAX, MIN, NPV, STDEV, SUM and GETSUMMARY: expression found where a field alone is needed
1215            This parameter is an invalid Get function parameter
1216            Only Summary fields allowed as first argument in GETSUMMARY
1217            Break field is invalid
1218            Cannot evaluate the number
1219            A field cannot be used in its own formula
1220            Field type must be normal or calculated
1221            Data type must be number, date, time, or timestamp
1222            Calculation cannot be stored
1223            The function is not implemented
1224            The function is not defined
1225            The function is not supported in this context
1300            The specified name can’t be used
1400            ODBC driver initialization failed; make sure the ODBC drivers are properly installed
1401            Failed to allocate environment (ODBC)
1402            Failed to free environment (ODBC)
1403            Failed to disconnect (ODBC)
1404            Failed to allocate connection (ODBC)
1405            Failed to free connection (ODBC)
1406            Failed check for SQL API (ODBC)
1407            Failed to allocate statement (ODBC)
1408            Extended error (ODBC)
1409            Error (ODBC)
1413            Failed communication link (ODBC)
Error codes marked with an asterisk (*) are returned only by web-published databases.

The function Position(text, search string, start, occurrence) scans the supplied text for the nth occurrence of a search string, starting where you indicate with start.

Here’s the neat bit: a negative occurrence value causes the scan to go in the opposite direction. The following gives the position of the LAST occurrance of string in text:

position(text, string, length(text), -1)

When you are in browse mode looking at a record and want to copy the data to another application, what would you do? Export it ? No need!

If you just select Copy from the edit menu or press Ctrl + C (Command + C on Mac) you will have the data from the current record (that is on the current layout) on the clipboard, ready to paste into another application in tab delimited format. So if you paste it into an Excel document for example, it will separate into columns.

If you don’t just want the current record but you want the entire found set, then all you have to do is hold down the Shift key (Option key on Mac) whilst selecting copy and instead of the current record, the data from the whole current set will now be copied to the clipboard.

When running a loop script which is processing lots of records, redrawing of the window to show the updates can take a while, so if you call the Freeze Window script step before starting the loop, no window updates are performed and loops will finish quicker.

It is advised to goto a layout with a please wait message or something and then return to the original layout after the loop has finished.

This simple calculation returns a boolean of wether the current year is a leap year or not.

Case(
IsEmpty(Current Date), TextToNum(""),
Mod(Year(Current Date),4) = 0
and
Mod(Year(Current Date),100) <> 0
or
Mod(Year(Current Date),400) =0 , 1, 0
)