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Help with relationships please.

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    Help with relationships please.

    I have two tables, tbl_categories & tbl_manufacturers.

    Each manufacturer makes products that fall into more than one category and each category will have products that are made by more than one manufacturer.

    I've read that A5 does not support many-to-many relationships.

    How should I approach this issue?

    Thanks,

    Louis

    #2
    RE: Help with relationships please.

    Maybe this would work for you...

    Categories one-to-many with Manufacturers...
    then...in the same set...
    Manufacturers one-to-many with Categories

    Comment


      #3
      RE: Help with relationships please.

      Louis,

      I'm probably not the best one to give advice about relationships since I'm divorced, :) but here goes.

      It's true A5 does not support many to many, but there is no reason you cannot have two sets.

      Define one set where Manufacturer is the master and Category is the child, with one-to-many.

      First two columns of tbl_manufacturers would be like
      Name Type Width
      Manf_key Character xx (make this unique)
      Cat_key Character xx

      First two columns of tbl_categories would be like
      Name Type Width
      Cat_key Character xx (make this unique)
      Manf_key Character xx

      Then make the Manufacturer.set

      tbl_manufacturers (One to many on Manf_key)
      |
      -> tbl_categories

      Then do the reverse, Category is master and Manufacturer is the child

      Category.set

      tbl_categories (One to many on Cat_key)
      |
      -> tbl_manufacturers

      Good luck,
      Melvin

      Comment


        #4
        RE: Help with relationships please.

        DO YOU ALSO HAVE A "PRODUCTS" TABLE? If so, then you can link the products to categories, and manufacturers.

        Category table contains product codes.

        Manufacturer table also contains product code.

        Product table links one to many to category.

        Product table links one to many to manufacturer.

        Using the product table an an intermediary, you can link manufacturers to categories via product as wel as the reverse.

        Tom

        Comment


          #5
          RE: Help with relationships please.

          Thanks to all for your suggestions.

          I think given the diversity of your suggestions, I should be more specific about what I am trying to accomplish. Please forgive my wordiness.

          My company sells commercial grade telephone systems to businesses. I am building a database that I eventually want to port to the Internet using Alpha's Web Applications Server.

          Part of the database/website is going to involve a shopping cart for traditional e-commerce.

          I want the customer to be able to select a product category (Entire Phone Systems, Digital Phones, Analog Phones, Voice Mail Products) and so on.

          If the user selects "Entire Phone Systems" the next step will be to select a manufacturer (Avaya, Nortel, Inter-Tel, Comdial) and so on.

          Next the user will select the phone system that they are interested in...had the user chosen Avaya as the manufacturer, then the system choices would be Merlin,Partner ACS, Merlin Magix and so on, had they chosen Inter-Tel then the system choices would be Axxess, Axxent and Encore.

          Once the system has been selected, the user should be presented a list of component parts that relate to the specific system they chose.

          Here's where the relationships come into play.

          Avaya,Nortel,Inter-Tel and Comdial all make complete telephone systems AND Digital Phones AND Voice Mail...

          Only Avaya makes the Merlin, Partner ACS, Magix...

          Only Partner ACS phones will work on the Partner ACS system BUT Some Partner ACS phones will work on the Magix.

          Partner ACS phones are part of a complete system AND they are also Analog Phones.

          I want to offer the most flexibility possible when a customer is looking for the product they are interested in. Some customers might know the item part number, others might know their system name, some might want to search by manufacturer and others might just want to surf through the categories until they see something they are interested in.

          Additional advice will be greatly appreciated!

          Louis

          Comment


            #6
            RE: Help with relationships please.

            Louis,

            Based on your last update, you might be able to handle this with a cascading table lookup.

            But at the very least, you need the following tables.

            1. Category - with cat. type & manf.
            2. Manufacturer - with manf id. & cat. type
            3. systems - system id & manf. id
            4. components - system_id & part no, manf. id
            5. compatability - system_id & part no. + compat sys & part.

            You can create a main menu where the user could choose Category, Manufacturer, System or Component, and then drive
            the lookup by opening an appropriate form.

            Remember, you can always create more than one index for each table. Just be sure to only index those fields that are absolutely needed.

            Hope that helps point you in the right direction,
            Melvin

            Comment

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