Matching to a record in linked field which is in another field as a subset

[CPRS_Admin]

I’ve been having an issue where I’m getting an error and unable to figure out, how to go about it, when I’m trying to match a linked field such as

Linked Field Column

ABC, CDE
AB, DEF

Which filterbyformula query could I use to get AB but not ABC, as when I do a search or find for AB it returns both the results, as expected. An equal (=) sign wouldn’t work as it’s not the complete field.

Help appreciated.

[Alex_Wolfe]

What about a search for AB in addition to a count of the letters? (so it would need to have AB and be equal to 2 characters?

[CPRS_Admin]

That wouldn’t work as, if it was AB C, it would check it’s length as two. There are so many possible test cases, over which FIND and SEARCH fail. I could go ahead and create a function for this on javascript(Node.js), but I hoped such a function, would be present here. There isn’t. :sob:

[Alex_Wolfe]

Hmm, can you show me what the data looks like? It is hard to understand the limitations/needs without seeing it.

[CPRS_Admin]

This is not dependent on my current dataset, I have been running through different test cases, which would cause issues in the future. This is one I couldn’t handle using AirTable functions.

[Alex_Wolfe]

My question was mainly to determine what your linked records actually are. I assumed based on your first message the record names were “ABC”, “CDE”, etc. But it sounds like they are actually “A”, “B”, “C”, etc. This would change the way of approaching the issue - however it would likely take some more complex IF formulas.

[CPRS_Admin]

I supposed there could’ve been a way to check for a string-match to the option, which is a really basic function required for matching a linked field to a specified string, but sadly there is not, instead I have to use hacks which could disrupt the program when I use an array of test cases. It’s just a basic array search, which Airtable complicates.