Multiple records on both side of a relationship

[Ersen Kavak]

Hi,

Any comments will be appreciated. I am really stuck.

I am a biologist/bioinformatician. I am trying to track info for mices, in the lab.

1-)A mouse can be part of multiple breeding events.

2-)And, a breeding event can contain multiple mice.

This relationship goes over mice::breeder_ID and mice_breeders::ID, as shown in attached image.

The problem is, I can not have both of the above 2 points. I should choose either of them.

From the mice layout, I want to put a portal which includes the information regarding in which breedings that mouse was used.

And, from the breedings layout, I want to put a portal, which shows which mice were used in that breeding.

I can not add 1 mice to more than 1 breedings. Because, breeder_id can get only 1 value, I guess.

I tried adding new relationship fields into both tables, but there is something interesting going on here, I cannot even name. I am not coming from a computing background, I though I knew relationships, but apperantly I donot.

Please Help Me

Thx

[comment]

You are describing a many-to-many relationship. This is best handled by having a join table betwen the two main tables. See here for a basic demo:

http://www.fmforums.com/forum/showpost.php?post/246136/

[Ersen Kavak]

Thanks a lot,

It totally solved my problem, and I am very happy to learn that an inner merge is possible like this in Filemaker...And I just started to wonder if an outer merge would be possible ?

Regards and Thx again

[comment]

Filemaker does not support outer joins as such, but there are workarounds.