table relationship advice...

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hi,
main table is equipment which lists every piece of inventory
from this there are linked tables to user/location/type etc...
I need to store detailed info about each piece of equipment.
For example if the type is a PC a subform would show fields for processor/HDD/memory...
if type is printer the subform would show copycount/lastservice etc...

this info is surely related to the equip_type table
and not the main table?
How do I link equip_type to table that shows fields for individual equip_types?
Making tables for each equip_type is surely not the best option?

any comments would be great for this simple prob?
need more info let me know

Regards Mark

 

[tahilg]

Try two new tables:

Table 1:
Equip-Type (FK)
Info-Type

The Info-Type field would contain a value such as "Processor", "HDD", "Memory", etc. This table would identify the detailed information allowed/required for each equipment type.

Table 2:
Equipment-Id (FK to the main equipment table)
Info-Type
Info-Value

The Info-Type field would contain a value such as "Processor", "HDD", "Memory", etc. The Info-Value field would contain the actual value for the specified Info-Type For example, if Info-Type contains the value "Memory" then Info-Value might contain the value "512MB".

You will have to programmatically ensure that the appropriate Info-Type values are used in Table 2 for each piece of equipment.

HTH

Gunny