Repeat loop in filemaker Pro 7 database

Question

How can I get my script to loop through a large FM database of records and change the data in a particular field as in the script below? I cannot figure out the syntax for the repeat loop...
with timeout of "3000" seconds
tell application "FileMaker Pro"
go to database "CPA FM Log Copy"
show every record of database "CPA FM Log Copy"
set theCount to number of record of database "CPA FM Log Copy" as integer
repeat with i from record theCount of database "CPA FM Log Copy"
if field "ph" of record i of database "CPA FM Log Copy" is "NG" then
set data field "ph" of current record of database "CPA FM Log Copy" to "Nice Going"
else if field "ph" of record i of database "CPA FM Log Copy" is "EC" then
set data field "ph" of current record of database "CPA FM Log Copy" to "Everything Cool"
end if
end repeat
end tell
end timeout

Answer 1

Depending on the number of records in the database, this isn't the most efficient way of doing this.
You should use a 'whose' clause in your script to narrow the FileMaker results to the subset of records you want to change, then change them all at once. This is far more efficient than looping through thousands of records in AppleScript looking for the ones you want.
This should get you on the right track:
<pre class=command>tell application "Filemaker Pro"
go to database "CPA FM Log Copy"
set theResults to every record of database "CPA FM Log Copy" whose field "ph" is "NG"
set data field "ph" of every item of theResults to "Nice Going"
set theResults to every record of database "CPA FM Log Copy" whose field "ph" is "EC"
set data field "ph" of every item of theResults to "Everything Cool"
end tell</pre>
In this way you let Filemaker do the searching (which is what it's optimized for), and your script does the least work necessary.
BTW, just so you know why your original script fails, it's because you say:
<pre class=command>set data field "ph" of current record of database "CPA FM Log Copy" to "Nice Going"</pre>
Note that you're always setting the 'current record'. This means that even if there are 1000 records in the database, you only ever set the first field. If you wanted to maintain the repeat approach this would have to change to something like:
<pre class=command>set data field "ph" of record i of database "CPA FM Log Copy" to "Nice Going"</pre>
so now it uses the loop iterator to track which record to change. An even better model that does use a scalar index is to do something like:
<pre class=command>repeat with curRecord in every record of database "CPA FM Log Copy"
if field "ph" of curRecord is "NG" then
set data field "ph" of curRecord to "Nice Going"
end if
end repeat</pre>
This nice thing about this model is that it uses FileMaker's internal references for records so that you know you're changing the right thing. This can be crucial if working in a multi-user database where there might be someone else is editing the data in parallel, changing theCount.