I currently have 5 databases joined using Lotus Approach as the database front-end. The database is for a large music collection and has databases for artist, title, vocalist, non-chart, and chart information. There is a need for duplicate keys, for example there may be several recordings of "Bird Dog" by the "Everly Brothers" and since the chart and non-chart databases use the title and artist keys as their key, you can see the rationale for duplicate keys. All is well except for the lack of SQL capability in the native Approach format (.dbf). I would like to export the databases in Paradox format (.db) but cannot seem to discover a way to allow duplicate key entries. Does anyone have an idea how I may accomplish this?
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Is There A Way to have Paradox allow duplicate keys?
- Thread starter davedz
- Start date
Addding a unique numeric field to the front end of the composite key is the only thing I can think of.
Mac
"There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't"
langley_mckelvy@cd4.co.harris.tx.us
Mac
"There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't"
langley_mckelvy@cd4.co.harris.tx.us
davedz,
Not with Paradox tables, no. However, you could use a different table formwat that provides this if you wish.
Having said that, I should point out that Mac's suggestion may be the better approach. If you're having that much trouble identifying a unique combination of field values that's consistent across all records, then that's a hint that you need to create one.
Now, the initial way many people try doing that is to create an autoincrement field and rely on that. Unfortunately, there are severe limitations in Paradox AI fields (kind of like the movie). A better way to handle thatis to either calculate a unique counter value yourself or to use an add-in that does this for you, such as RDA's AutoKey (see for details).
AutoKey is a fairly inexpensive solution; it costs $20 for the basic package and $30 for the deluxe version. I've fiddled with it a bit and if I didn't already have my own solution for that sort of problem, I would have used it.
Hope this helps...
-- Lance
Not with Paradox tables, no. However, you could use a different table formwat that provides this if you wish.
Having said that, I should point out that Mac's suggestion may be the better approach. If you're having that much trouble identifying a unique combination of field values that's consistent across all records, then that's a hint that you need to create one.
Now, the initial way many people try doing that is to create an autoincrement field and rely on that. Unfortunately, there are severe limitations in Paradox AI fields (kind of like the movie). A better way to handle thatis to either calculate a unique counter value yourself or to use an add-in that does this for you, such as RDA's AutoKey (see for details).
AutoKey is a fairly inexpensive solution; it costs $20 for the basic package and $30 for the deluxe version. I've fiddled with it a bit and if I didn't already have my own solution for that sort of problem, I would have used it.
Hope this helps...
-- Lance
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