Newbie help with totalling numbers

[dmacman]

Hi everyone,

I am hosting a file over the web with web companion (I know its not the best way to go, but until I'm more confortable in GoLive, Ill begin here).

My question, I believe, is more "caculations" related, then relationship related, so I posted here.

I have what seems simple, yet is baffling me. I want to "relate" users to their sponsor, and then total ordered tape items up to their sponsors. For example:

Me

/

joe fred

/ /

tom jim jeff tim

So, if joe orders 2, and tom and jim each order one, then joes order to me is 4.

Also, if fred order 6, and jeff and tim each order 3, then freds order is 12.

I know what I want but not how to "flow" the totals up to the next person.

I hope this makes sense.

Thanks in advance,

Don Andrzejczak

Dmacman

[LiveOak]

This is actually quite a tough problem for FM. I once wrote a multi-level marketing system in FM to implement such a "linked list" type structure. I used relationships and a "mirror" file to fool FM, as you can't have the same field on both sides of a calculation. The problem was that the FM engine would not reliably drive the calculation up the list.

The only wany I know of to reliably drive calculations up the list is to use lookups, find a level and perform a relookup, find the next level up and perform another relookup, etc. until you have progressed up through all the levels.

My opinion is that special purpose programs are much better at dealing with linked lists (and MLM) than relational databases.

-bd

[dmacman]

Thanks for the reply.

I understand what you said, I think. Do you know of any of the specail programs you suggested?

Thanks again

Don Andrzejczak

Dmacman

[LiveOak]

Sorry, I've never worked with one of these packages. The other thing I found out about MLM is that a lot of the people involved are less than ethical and end up as slow/no pays for a consultant! As a matter of business policy, I now don't accept business from MLM's.

I'm sure a web search or a call to a couple of orgainizations doing muli-level marketing would yield a couple of possibilities. These solutions may also provide a graphical display of the downlines. There is probably a trade publication for MLM which might yield some vendors.

-bd