Populating foriegn key field using lookup table

[consultgal]

I have been out of FM development for a few years and now that I'm back, I seem to have forgotten some very basic things. (I guess that happens when you switch to MySQL and PHP for awhile!)

Should I use a global text field to allow a user to select the row from the lookup table? I only want to store the foriegn key in the master table.

[John Mark Osborne]

Global fields are temporary storage so if you want permanent storage, use a regular text, number, date or time field. This will allow you to store a different value on each record.

[consultgal]

I'm sorry I should have been more clear. I recognize the difference between field types. I guess what I am asking is why would I ever want to store the field that the person used to lookup?

For example, I want to associate a doctor with a study, so i am going to store the PersonID for the doctor as a foriegn key in the study table. Onviously, my user will need to look the doctor up by name, as they don't know the key value. But I don't want to hardcode the name in the study. I want it to change if the doc's name changes (i.e. they get married). So it seems to me in that situation I would want to have the lookup of the doctor's name be done through a global, yes?

Thanks in advance!

Courtney

[John Mark Osborne]

Yes, you should use a global field if you don't want to store the data permanently.