Master Record Set in A - Z Grid

> 1. To create the A-Z list, create a recordset that selects the first
> letter of the column on which you want to base the index. Say it's a list
> of people, you want the first letter of everyone's family name. In MySQL,
> you would use the following as the SQL query:
>
> SELECT DISTINCT LEFT(family_name, 1) AS letter
> FROM my_table

Also ORDER BY LEFT(family_name, 1)

Tom

LJG wrote:
> Hi I am looking to have a grid A - Z so slecting a letter filters the records
> for just the names of that letter, does anyone know the best way to do this?
> has anyone done it?

When asking this sort of question, it's important to say which server
model and database you're using, because the code for each one is
different. However, the principle is the same for all.

1. To create the A-Z list, create a recordset that selects the first
letter of the column on which you want to base the index. Say it's a
list of people, you want the first letter of everyone's family name. In
MySQL, you would use the following as the SQL query:

SELECT DISTINCT LEFT(family_name, 1) AS letter
FROM my_table

Using the LEFT() function with 1 as the second argument gives you the
first letter only of each family name. DISTINCT eliminates duplicate
entries. This produces a recordset of initial letters to build your index.

2. Build the index using the recordset, and create a link to your
display page. Select the Parameters button in the Select File dialog
box, and set the name to "letter", and bind the value to "letter" from
the recordset. This adds a query string to the end of the link in the
form ?letter=m.

3. In your master page, create a recordset using the URL parameter
"letter" as the filter.

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David Powers, Adobe Community Expert
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