Is this "Magic Key"?

[human]

I just recently "rediscovered" this technique, having stumbled upon it: Say you have two tables A and B. Make a global field in A, and create a relationship between the two tables based on the global field in the A being equal to some field in the B. Now set the global field in A to a return-delimited list of values. Then, from A, do "Go to related record" in B (match current record only), and boom, you get all the records in B that match any item in the list. Sure beats looping and finding. My question is: is it what people refer to as "Magic Key", or is that something different?

[comment]

1 hour ago, human said:

is it what people refer to as "Magic Key"

No. The technique called "Magic Key" is a method of creating records, not finding them. You can read about it here, for example:
https://filemakerhacks.com/2011/07/31/magic-key-and-check-box-reporting/

 

1 hour ago, human said:

Sure beats looping and finding.

It depends. I would think twice (and more) before adding to the relationships graph something that serves only such limited purpose.

 

 

[Fitch]

The term you're thinking of might be, not magic key, but 'multi-key.' It can indeed be quite useful, not only for going to related records, but displaying those records in a portal.

[human]

Thanks!