Peculiar relationship behaviour

[Code-J]

Anyone help? I have come across some very weird relationship behaviour I need to resolve. I have a complex solution with a large amount of data, upon which statistics need to be performed.

Situation

Data held in a number of tables and files, accessed from one separate, common interface file. All FM 7.0v3. 2-4 users, files hosted using FM7 (standard). Same behaviour on Mac OSX and WindowsXP single or multi-user.

Relationships

Many, involving multiple criteria.

Background

I have a relationship from the interface file (HyIS) to another file (Runs). Some of the data in Runs is auto-entered by calculation from a third file (Races). The relationship between Runs and Races includes RaceNo as a key field. Races are either entered by hand (on a layout in HyIS) or from a text feed using a script. Records in Runs are created similarly.

There is a complex relationship in HyIS from a table called Queries to Runs (Queries_Runs). The fields from queries are global calculations (calculated from global fields), some of which are muti-line fields. One example is a list of three letter country codes. Match requirements include for example a MaxAge field, which compares to an Age field in Runs, which needs to be less than or equal to MaxAge; similarly MinAge.

The Query_Runs relationship is used to isolate records that match varying criteria for statistical analyses.

The problem

When a new record is created in Races (and committed), then a new record is created in Runs (and committed) (it makes no difference if they are created via HyIS or in the relevant file directly), the matching record from Runs will NOT show up in the relationship. However, if the record in Races is created by the data feed script and a new record in Runs is created, it WILL show up. This problem persists, even after FileMaker has been quit and restarted, even if days have passed, so it does not appear to be an indexing problem. This is true no matter where the portal appears (on a layout based on Queries, or one based on Runs).

It gets weirder!

If you change a field that is one of the keys between Runs and Races (eg RaceNo see above) in the new record in runs to data from a record in Races which has been recognized by the Query_Runs relationship, the record shows up in the portal, as you may expect. If now you switch back to the original key, the record which did not show up before, now does!

This is a major problem for me as my client needs to be able enter data both from feeds and manually and depends on accurate isolation of the records. I would be grateful for suggestions/explanations.

[Søren Dyhr]

I think what you descripe here is considered a feature by Ugo among others:

http://www.fmforums.com/threads/showflat...true#Post141559

--sd