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DDRparser

🔍 DDRparser – Make Your FileMaker Solution Searchable

DDRparser is a command-line tool that exports your FileMaker Pro solution into a set of clean, structured, and searchable text files.
It helps developers understand, navigate, and track even large and complex FileMaker systems—using standard developer tools like plain-text editors and Git.

🧾 How It Works

FileMaker Pro can export your solution structure as XML using two built-in options under the Tools menu:

🔹 Database Design Report (DDR)

Tools → Database Design Report…

  • Produces a folder with:
    • A Solution.xml file (summary and references)
    • One or more XML files—one for each FileMaker file in your solution, named after the database (e.g., MyApp.xml)
  • Supported in FileMaker Pro since long ago.

🔹 Save a Copy as XML

Tools → Save a Copy as XML…

Available in newer FileMaker versions (FileMaker Pro 19+)

Produces one single large XML file

Contains the entire structure of the solution in one file

DDRparser “chews through” this XML and outputs one readable .txt file per object, organized into folders (e.g., Scripts, Tables, Layouts). This makes it easy to browse, search, and version-control your solution—just like code in other development platforms.

🚀 Purpose and Benefits

  • Convert unreadable XML into readable and organized plain-text files.
  • Easily locate scripts, fields, value lists, relationships, and custom functions.
  • Enable version control using Git for tracking changes over time.
  • Search across all parts of a FileMaker solution using any plain-text editor.
  • Extract meaningful structure from even the largest FileMaker projects.

🔧 Key Features

  • Supports both DDR (Summary.xml) and SaveAsXML exports.
  • Produces one file per script, layout, table, etc., organized into folders.
  • Text-based output suitable for multi-file search and diff tools.
  • Handles custom functions, relationships, menu sets, value lists, and more.
  • Works offline, fast, and license-free.

🚀 The GUI tool (FileMaker app)

The GUI tool is a simple filemaker app that produces command-line commands for the DDRparsers command line utility. The Gui tool require the ACF plugin version 1.7.5.6 or higher that can be downloaded with the buttons in the bottom of this page.

The App, lets you select files, folders and options – then you can simply copy the commands into a terminal window on your Mac to run the utility. The ACF plugin is used for selecting files and folder, notifications about new DDRparser versions, and probing the selected XML file to verify it is a compatible file type.

💡 Use Cases

Here is some typical use cases or examples, but there are many more.

🔎 Update Tracking in Scripts

You’ve modified a script to accept new parameters and want to verify that all script calls are updated accordingly.
DDRparser lets you search for the script name across all files, instantly revealing every place it’s used—so you can fix or confirm all calls without opening dozens of FileMaker windows.

🧭 Navigating Complex Relationships

In large solutions, the graphical relationship graph may span multiple screens.
With DDRparser, you can search the relationships text file directly for table or field names, quickly locating TOs and relationship chains—no need to scroll around in the graph.

🧠 Understanding New Solutions

When exploring a new system, you want to understand how logic is structured.
With expanded calculations shown directly in script steps and field definitions, DDRparser makes it easy to read and follow the logic without clicking through each step manually.

📜 Git-Based Change Tracking

Use Git to track every change to your FileMaker solution over time. With DDRparser’s structured text output, you can:

  • See exactly what was added, changed, or deleted.
  • Identify who made changes and when.
  • Restore deleted logic or review earlier versions of scripts and definitions.

🛠 Note: Git is a read-only history tool in this context. You cannot push changes back into your FileMaker file from Git.
All modifications must still be made inside FileMaker. But with Git, you gain a powerful audit trail and collaborative development workflow that’s otherwise impossible.

📦 Downloads

You can download the latest versions of our tools below:

🔹 DDRparser
Command-line tool for extracting readable content from FileMaker DDR and SaveAsXML exports. Bundled with the GUI tool.

Download Now!

🔹 ACF Plugin
Cross-platform FileMaker plugin with SQL, crypto, JSON, ZIP, Excel, and HTTP features.

Download Mac Version