Help Converting schema from Access to Oracle

I need to migrate several schemas that were created in Microsoft Access to an Oracle database and I'm not exactly sure whats the best way to model the data.

I have a lot of one-many relationships that use primary keys that are of the Access Counter data type. Heres what my tables look like in Access.

Customers Table
CustomerID - Counter and Primary Key of the customer table Name - this field indexed, but not unique SSN
... other stuff

Address Table
AddressKey - Counter and Primary key of the address table CustomerID - Foriegn key from the Customers table AdressLine1
... other stuff

This allows me to track customers that have the same name, without getting thier addresses confused. I also have enable the database integrity so if I delete a customer the Addresses will also be deleted.

I've moved the tables to Oracle, but Oracle doesn't have a 'Counter' data type that I'm aware of. What is the easiest way to relate the customers and addresses tables, so I can have

• multiple addresses for each customer
• I can store different customers with the same name and retain thier unique addresses
• retain functionality like cascading updates and deletes?

Do I have to create a trigger to emulate the Access Counter data type, and if so are there any triggers out there that do this so I could have an example to start from?

What about the Oracle RowID datatype? Is this what this data type was intended for?

The front end application that needs this data is in VB, if that matters.

Please send an e-mail copy to me in case I miss the post at sangelovic_at_geographix.com

Thanks for any help,
Steve Received on Fri Aug 18 1995 - 00:00:00 CEST