Relational problem

[Bruce M]

I have a DB with 5 records and one field in each record that contains the names, Al,Barb,Carl Doug and Ed. Now I want to have a new DB where there are 5 records and 6 fields. The first field contains the same 5 names as before, then field 2 contains the name Al in all of the records. Field 3 contains the name Barb, field 4 contains the name Carl, field 5 contains the name Doug and field six contains the name Ed in all 5 records. Next, I want a checkbox next to each field so that I can put a check in the box which will combine the contents of field 1 with contents of any of the other 5 fields into a new record. Example: record 1, put a check in the box next to field 4 and the result would create a new record containing "Al and Carl". Or another example: record 2, put a check in the box next to field 6 and the new record would be "Barb and Ed". These new doubles records could be created in another DB. There could be hundreds of records in the DB with just 1 field which, could result in thousands of doubles records. Anybody have any ideas?

[SlimJim]

This post is really about clarifying the problem not solving it.

First of all your description of the example with 5 records seems to imply that you will produce only 5 doubles. That is, in each record you choose one of the last five fields and combine it with field 1 to produce a double. Also, there is implicit (but not explicit) that you will not attach the same name to each part of a double. Your last sentence, however, does not seem consistent with that description. Since if the above were the case there would be as many doubles as there are original records (hundreds not thousands).

So the question is: in producing your doubles do you place any restrictions on the pairings? Another question: are you trying to find an automatic way of producing the doubles or are you (or somebody) proposing to go through all the records one-by-one producing them? Finally, in your DB with one field do you have any duplicate names?