On Wed, 20 Feb 2013 09:52:47 -0500, singhals <singhals@erols.com> wrote: >Denis Beauregard wrote: >> On Tue, 19 Feb 2013 22:08:25 -0500, singhals<singhals@erols.com> >> wrote in soc.genealogy.computing: >> >>> Kenny McCormack wrote: >>> >>>> I also agree with (whoever it was) the poster who wrote that feature-creep >>>> will eventually doom this project (writing a GEDCOM lib in AWK). >>> >>> That's one of the things wrong with GED -- people wanted it >>> to do things it was /never/ intended to do, but developers >>> of GEDStand "tweaked" the standard to allow each s/w >>> developer to (a) meet the minimum standard while (b) getting >>> 95% on moves between two users of the same program. People >>> started complaining before the GEDStan developers got out of >>> their hotel, because, hey, only 95%? >>> >>> Cheryl >>> ahhh, yes, I am still trying to forget GedStan discussions! >> >> You know what is wrong with Gedcom ? The format itself is something >> very powerful and I am surprised it is not in use in other fields. >> But the format is adapted to a hierarchical structure that is not >> compatible with a straight column-based database. So, what is wrong >> is not the format but its use. > >(G) The loose nut on the keyboard? > >The custom reports, saved as a csv and imported into a >spreadsheet, do a fair amount of the most common sorting I >want to do. When it doesn't, I go RTFM to see what I can find. > >ONE of the filters I'd like to have is something along the >lines of "show me everyone whose surname matches C-610 and >whose wife's given name contains Edna" Or, sometimes more >urgent, "show me all the Edna whose husband's given name >contains George." Yeah, I've got a spreadsheet, but it >ought to be do-able from within the program. > >Cheryl > > I think most programs will let you do that, but it is labor intensive, involves creating a subset that matches the first criterion exporting a gedcom, then operating on that subset and again exporting a gedcom, thus creating the subset that meets both criteria. Although I don't do SQL, there are users on the RM users list that apply SQL to the RM database to do just this kind of thing... without the messy need for creating gedcoms.