Splitting up a flat file db

[Johhhn]

Hi,

I'm working on a database with student records.

Each record has the student name and info-- address, phone #s, etc.

The problem is that it was setup so that along with each student, it also has the student's mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, aunt, etc..,, each one of these 'relatives' has unique fields for address, name, etc..

so,

DB Fields:

student_name

mom_name

father_name

student_address

student_address2

student_city

mom_address

mom_address2

and so on..

What's the easiest way to split this up, while maintaining the relationship- automagically?

-- without having to resort to making a script to copy fielda to globalfielda, copy fieldb to globalfieldb, etc., then create new record and fill in the fields.

There's gotta be at least over 100 fields that I have to go through to do it the way I described above!

thanks!

[mr_vodka]

I would suggest multiple imports for each type of relative into one file.

[Johhhn]

but then instead of typing out a long script, i'd have to hunt and select name1,address1,state1,phone1,cellphone1, all the way up to 8 or so.

hmmmm

[David Jondreau]

mr. v's got it. Import. If there was an automagical way to do this, I'd be out of business.

Create scripts to do the importing, run them a bunch till you're sure they work (using a script to Save as Clone to clear your working copy). Create a master script that calls all the sub scripts (Import Mom, Import Aunt, etc).

It's a learning curve, but it's really the easiest way.

[comment]

i'd have to hunt and select name1,address1,state1,pho ne1,cellphone1, all the way up to 8

True, but it's a one-time effort. However, before you do anything else, add a StudentID field to your existing table, define it as Number with auto-entered serial number, and populate it with serial numbers. Include this field in all your sequential imports, mapping it to a StudentID field of your new Relatives table (this is assuming you want to keep the relatives in a separate table).

Without this, you won't be able to link your imported records back to the originating student record.

[Johhhn]

Hi comment! How are you?

thanks for the info,, I went ahead and did it the long way :