Display Records in Portal with Instance of Same Name

[dmontano]

I have a table that has a "name_field". This table will have records where the "name_field" will contain the same value (name) as other records in the table.

 

I would like to use a portal to display all records where the "name_field" contains the same value (name).

 

I thought a self-relationship joined at the "name_field" would do the trick, but, it only shows a same value (name) when you are on a particular record. I understand this. What I don't understand is how to get the portal to show ALL records of the same name, regardless of which current record I am on.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

[comment]

how to get the portal to show ALL records of the same name

 

I don't understand your question. Show all records of the same name as ... what exactly? Every record has the same name as at least one record (itself).

[dmontano]

Hi Comment,

 

Example records in table:

Record 1: Product Classification — Version 032

Record 2: Product Classification — Version 006

 

Example fields in the table (pertinent to the question):

Field1: Scheme Name:

Field 2: Scheme Version:

 

"Product Classification" is the Scheme Name; "Version 032" is the Scheme Version.

 

I must allow a Scheme Name to be the same as another Scheme Name. The manner in which the two are distinguished is through the "Scheme Version" field. I take those two fields and concatenate them for display purposes - but that is beside the issue at hand.

 

I would like a portal on the same layout based on the table "Scheme", where I can see all "Schemes" that have the same "Scheme Name". This allows me to view the different versions.

 

A similar issue exists with people's names in a large data set: "Robert Smith" may be the name of multiple individuals (instances).

 

I hope that helps explain what I am trying to achieve.

 

Thanks

[comment]

I am afraid we're still at square one.

 

Unrelated (?) to your question, you should have separate tables for Schemes and Versions (one-to-many), since repeating the scheme name in the same table is an obvious violation of 2NF.

[dmontano]

Ugh! I suspected there was some other issue underlying my problem.

 

I am assuming that if I made the Scheme Version table, then to display the Scheme Versions that have the same Scheme Name… it becomes a simple matter of displaying a portal of the Scheme Version table on my Scheme layout.

 

Which leads me to suspect that ALL of my current related child tables of Scheme (a good half-dozen) will require a retrofit.

 

Are my assumptions correct?

[comment]

David, we seem to have a break in communications here - over plain English, not over DB or Filemaker terms. I am still unable to understand your goal. A portal to the Versions table, placed on a layout of Schemes, will show the Versions that are linked to the currently viewed record in Schemes (not the same name as the current scheme, because - hopefully- this name is recorded once only in the Schemes table).

 

Using your current structure, a portal based on a self-join relationship of the one table, matching on SchemeName, will also show all the versions that are linked to the currently viewed record - but you said that's not what you want, so ...

[dmontano]

Hi Michael,

 

My bad: the communication problem is mine. I am trying to build a classification application. This application needs to be able to manage all of the Categories, the Category Types in which Categories belong to, the way the Categories Rollup and the way the Category Types Rollup in a hierarchical manner. These would be all bound together in a particular Scheme. So far, I have a prototype that seems to be coming together reasonably well. The more I work with it, the more it is coming together, but it is a slow road. Two things are becoming more clear as I progress:

 

1) Creating VERSIONS of a scheme are needed. This was not clear to me until the discussion with you as shown above.

 

2) In the real world, "Classification Schemes" do not necessarily conform to a rigid structure throughout. An example of this is "Bacteria". "Bacteria" is considered a member of both a "Domain" and a "Kingdom".

 

This translates into my data model as such (Bold all cap words are tables):

CATEGORY: Bacteria  (a member of)  CATEGORY TYPE: Domain

CATEGORY: Bacteria  (a member of)  CATEGORY TYPE: Kingdom

 

Not to speak in DB or FileMaker terms, but the above indicates that a Category like "Bacteria" is considered to be a member of two different Category Types: "Domain" and Kingdom". This is infrequent, but the issue arises and creates, in essence, two records that have the same name.

 

A good example of what I am trying to build would an application that would replicate the Biological Classification as shown here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_classification

 

I consider it to be a "Scheme" with a "Scheme Name" of: Biological Classification Scheme.

 

I have attached a quick diagram (with sample records) of what I have built so far. What is not in the diagram - is VERSIONS. Anyways, maybe the diagram can more clearly show what I have so far. 

 

Thanks

 

diagram_classification.pdf

 

[comment]

Wow, that's some expansion of the question ... I am not sure I am willing to follow you to where you have taken this.

 

I will say this, though: duplicating records is not an option.  If the same CATEGORY ("Bacteria") can be a member of two CATEGORY TYPEs ("Domain" and "Kingdom") then you have a many-to-many relationship - which means you either use a join table or hack it by using a multi-key field.

 

Note that I emphasized "same", because a classification scheme can easily have duplicate names for different categories at different levels.

[dmontano]

Thanks Comment, appreciate your insight. I'm in the middle of trying to rework the database to accommodate what's been discussed.