postermmxvicom
Programmer
I am storing settings for different processes in a database. I have a table for my process names. I also have a separate table for each type of dialogue box that could store settings. Not every dialogue is used for every process. I need to compare settings used between all the different processes. This is easy enough if I only want to compare the settings used from a single dialogue box. I can just view the table or make a report based on that. However, I now need to compare all of the settings all at once.
I have devised a way to do this, but I feel that it must not be the best way or the right way to do this. What I have done is make a select query and grouped it by process. Also, I have chosen a join that lets all the records show up. However, what I don't like is that I must choose min/max/first/last or some agregate function to display the fields I want to display. I would rather not do that for several reasons. One is that I do not understand the behaviour of first/alst and it seems to not return the data I am looking for always (sometimes it gives me blank fields, when there are no blank fields in any of my records). I have not noticed min/max behaving this way, but since I don't understand it, I am cautious. More importantly, it alters the form of my data. If I have check boxes that are selected the now com back as -1 :/ And lastly, the same dialougue *could* show up multiple times in a process. That is not a problem now, but could be in the future.
For all practical purposes now, the data I need to display is in a one-to-one relationship with entries in the process table (although it could be one to many later - I dont have to worry about that right now if that is overly complicated). Am I doing this wrong? Is there a btter way?
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?
I have devised a way to do this, but I feel that it must not be the best way or the right way to do this. What I have done is make a select query and grouped it by process. Also, I have chosen a join that lets all the records show up. However, what I don't like is that I must choose min/max/first/last or some agregate function to display the fields I want to display. I would rather not do that for several reasons. One is that I do not understand the behaviour of first/alst and it seems to not return the data I am looking for always (sometimes it gives me blank fields, when there are no blank fields in any of my records). I have not noticed min/max behaving this way, but since I don't understand it, I am cautious. More importantly, it alters the form of my data. If I have check boxes that are selected the now com back as -1 :/ And lastly, the same dialougue *could* show up multiple times in a process. That is not a problem now, but could be in the future.
For all practical purposes now, the data I need to display is in a one-to-one relationship with entries in the process table (although it could be one to many later - I dont have to worry about that right now if that is overly complicated). Am I doing this wrong? Is there a btter way?
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?
