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Orphanage increasing dramataically.

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    Orphanage increasing dramataically.

    Welcome 2009,
    I'm lost as to how to stop orphan records growing in a web app,
    Eg a user deletes the parent record and uniquely associated child records are left behind.
    --
    Possible solutions I can think of are,
    -
    1. Write an A5 service that runs on a scheduled basis, that discovers the orphans and deletes them.

    2. Logging all parental deletions , using an event such as CanDeleteRecords,
    And then doing an immediate Orphan search and destroy.

    -
    in an A5 desktop this is easy using sets and cascading changes,
    But in a Web app I'm at a loss.

    So can anyone indicate the correct method?

    #2
    Re: Orphanage increasing dramataically.

    The two methods you outline are both good practice.

    Implement the one that makes the best sense for you. Heck, putting both of them to work isn't a bad idea either.
    -Steve
    sigpic

    Comment


      #3
      Re: Orphanage increasing dramataically.

      Thanks Steve,
      I was hoping someone would reply "Don't you know A5 has an inbuilt solution"
      But neither of the above are actually difficult to impliment. As a typical added safeguard I'll probably duplicate the records to a compacted type file for reference, before actually deleting them, from the dbf.

      Best wishes for the year.

      Comment


        #4
        Re: Orphanage increasing dramataically.

        And what did you discover was the A5 inbuilt solution?

        Thanks for any info because the inability to to implement cascading changes or even define parent child relationships in web app databases is killing my designs.

        Best,

        Comment


          #5
          Re: Orphanage increasing dramataically.

          And what did you discover was the A5 inbuilt solution?
          Hansolo, I am sad to say I haven't found an inbuilt solution,
          . I have gone for a method of tracking Deletion of Parents, and then I run a system deletion of the child recs that have the link to the ex parent.
          If web applications supported the full fundamentals of Sets things would be much nicer
          Good luck

          Comment


            #6
            Re: Orphanage increasing dramataically.

            Thanks for the reply. I thought as much. I am still using Version 8 and wondering if upgrading to version 9 or the upcoming 10 has solved this problem for us? Any clue? Frankly it would be the single biggest reason for me to upgrade.

            Comment


              #7
              Re: Orphanage increasing dramataically.

              I have version 9 and There is nothing extra in it for this,
              Who knows version 10, may allow cascading changes, lets hope.

              Comment


                #8
                Re: Orphanage increasing dramataically.

                Surely cascading changes is a fundamental requirement for a good database product. Isn't referential integrity a key element of a relational database??

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: Orphanage increasing dramataically.

                  Hi Colin,

                  I implement my own "referential integrity" and "cascading" deletions of sorts.

                  Whenever a user attempts to delete a record, I have code that first checks to see if there are any child records. If there are, I actually prevent the deletion, and give the user a message that tells them they cannot delete the record and why? They must then go to the child record(s), delete them, and then can come back and delete the parent. I do this on purpose.

                  Of course, you could adapt this idea to just delete the child records along with the parent. So, when user attempts to delete a parent, use code to check for any child records, delete those child records, and then delete the parent. I delete the children first and then delete the parent.

                  I use this even on the desktop, instead of the built in referential integrity.

                  I have used this idea for years, and never had a problem.

                  Gary
                  Gary S. Traub, Ph.D.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: Orphanage increasing dramataically.

                    Even in a desktop database referential integrity, with cascading deletes, is not working.

                    Coming back to Alpha (Version 8, build 1980) for the first time since '93 so I didn't RTFM. Could I be missing an index? I've packed the db, and still deleting of the parent record in a one to many relationship is not deleting any of the children.

                    Originally there were two (2) one to many relationships, but the weirdness was too much when a new parent record would disappear. Now that there is only one parent to many relationship in the set, I can add records without them disappearing, but the deletes are not being fired. BTW, this is a new set in the existing database.

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