How to get a list of possible values for a field

[#1]

I need to check an existence of previous date for date in a chart for whole current selection.

As "exists" doesn't exist for a chart. I can use match() function only, like:

=match(MyDate - 1, MyDatePossibleListStr)

For MATCH function, the second parameter should be a comma separated string.

Right now I'm using a macro to generate the string from field values:

sub GetPossibleDatesStr

 set fld=ActiveDocument.Fields("dmNumDateHour")
 set var=ActiveDocument.GetVariable("vPossibleDates")
 dim str
 set val = fld.GetPossibleValues(20000)

 'msgbox(val.Count)

 for i=0 to val.Count-1
 str = str + CStr(val.Item(i).Number) + ","
 next

' msgbox str

 var.setContent str, true

end sub

In onAnySelect trigger I call the macro to populate the variable vPossibleDates with possible dates.

After that, my match() function looks like this:

=match(MyDate - 1, '$(vPossibleDates )')

Everything works fine, but tooooooo slow.

Maybe somebody knows another way to implement the logic or maybe there is a way to avoid the macro???

[#2]

The concat() function should return a comma separated list of possible values:

=concat(FIELD)

For you, try:

=match(MyDate - 1, concat(DATE_FIELD))

[johnw]

Concat didn't work directly, I believe because we're creating a single string field with all the dates in it, not a literal piece of code inserted into the match() function. Dollar sign expansion fixes that, though:

match(MyDate-1,$(=concat(num(dmNumDateHour),',')))

That's definitely better than executing a macro, but perhaps we can do better still. For instance, it might be worth creating a DayBeforeMyDate field and using set analysis. Not sure if it'd be faster or slower.

count({<DayBeforeMyDate={'$(=concat(dmNumDateHour,chr(39)&','&chr(39)))'}>} MyDate)

I'm also thinking there might be a way to take advantage of the P() notation in set analysis, some sort of way of saying that DayBeforeMyDate is in the set of possible values of dmNumDateHour, but a solution so far eludes me.

[#4]

This is what I need in my dashboard:

=count({<DayBeforeMyDate=E(MyDate)>} MyDate)

or

=<any group function>({<DayBeforeMyDate=E(MyDate)>} <some value>)

John, thank you for the bell about P/E functions in set analysis