Relational Files vs Multiple tables

[EddyB]

Hi all,

Could someone please explain what are the advantages of the multi tables feature now available as opposed to related files in v6. Apart from the obvious less files to deal with! A customer has asked me for the advantages of upgrading to v7, I don't really know enough to give a sufficient answer yet so I am just doing my research before I reply to them!

Many thanks

Ed

Version: v6.x

Platform: Windows 2000

[Fitch]

Less files is one way to look at it. More tables is another. You no longer have to think twice about whether to expend one of your precious files on say, a phone number list for each contact. Now you can have a table for phone numbers, a table for addresses, etc. etc. And you don't have to worry about relating all those files/tables. E.g., with a simple company -> contact -> phone it was a pain if you wanted the contact's phone in the company file. Now it's automatic. And relationships are two-way, you don't have to create two relationships. And relationships can have multiple criteria, including not equal, greater or less than, etc. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

[joseppic]

Hi,

Does anyone know if the use of tables rather than files will:

i. Mean I can avoid the 125 file hard limit on the FM Server 7 by replacing files with tables within a main file?

ii. Alleviate the painful way I have to go about renaming every file, modify every calc, script etc. when I want to duplicate a Database on the Server (to ensure filenames are unique)? - Will I only have to rename one file?

[Ocean West]

Renaming a large file solution will be a thing of the past. If you choose to employ a multi-file solution in 7 you will need to rename them w/ developer.

Even though you can have millions of tables in a file there is still is a preferred numbered users accessing the servers and the number of tables that server is hosting. Although much better the current version.

[LeCates]

Hi friends,

A minor elaboration on the word "need":

If you choose to employ a multi-file solution in 7 you will need to rename them w/ developer.

Correct of course. FM Developer 7 will continue to offer the ability to rename files as a convenience. However, you can use File>Define>File References... to manually update file reference paths too.

[carabas]

About the way tables are related: will we still need the famous "Number one" field, containing the same value in every record, when we want to display all values of a related file in a portal? Or is the "universal" relationship an understatement between tables in the same file?

[JerrySalem]

I would like to echo Ed's original post. I have a multi file database in FM6. Are there any rules as to how I should procede into FMP7?

On one end of the spectrum I could just drop the database into FMP7 and let FileMaker do all my work creating multiple tables.

The other end of the spectrum would be completely rewriting my solution into a single file with multiple tables.

How do I chose either extreme?!? or if I should create some combination of the two extreme (multiple files each with a couple of tables.

TIA

Jerry

[The Shadow]

In response to carabase, there is a new relation operator "x" (cross-product) that always shows all records from the related table.