Relationship?

[mhalpern]

So I have been trying to develop a solution to program a school..... I have a file with the following fields...class, period 1, period 2, period 3 and so on.  In the fields I have obvious data... class- "801",  period 1- "gym"   period 2- "math"  so I have no problem when I find by class where they should go for each period, but I want to turn the schedule around and list it by subject as well, so if I find "Math", I would want to see period 1- *702", Period 2-"801, Period 3-"802... I assume I need to do a relationship file, but I can't for the life of me figure this out.  Can anyone help?

[Rick Whitelaw]

When you say you have a "file" do you mean a table? If so you should likely have more than one and use related records. I would determine what is a distinct entity. For example "Class" might be a distinct entity and at the upper end of the hierarchy. You could have a separate table of periods and yet another for subjects. These can all be related by primary keys, auto-entered serial in the class table, and foreign keys in the other tables. It would help to see your relationship graph or an explanation of your design. Others will have more, and perhaps better, advice.

[comment]

Whenever you have numbered fields, such as "period 1, period 2, period 3 and so on", it's almost invariably a telltale that you need another table where each period would be a separate related record.

 

I am afraid that's all I can say at this point, because what you call obvious isn't at all obvious to me. A little background about what things your solution intends to track and for what purpose could be very helpful.

[Lee Smith]

Hi Mhalpern, and welcome to the forum,

 

I moved your topic from "FileMaker Pro 10" to "Relationships”, because the general topic FileMaker 10 is reserved for discussion of the new tools that were released with it, and not for How-To Questions.

 

Lee