Forms 4.5 issue - seems simple but ...

From: Paul Young <youngpa_at_statcan.ca>
Date: 1996/01/11
Message-ID: <DL0so1.D07_at_statcan.ca>#1/1

This is a re-post; There must be other applications to which this issue applies...

I am building a form (Forms 4.5.6) to update a few columns. The problem is these columns are on three different tables.

I have 3 tables, say TAB1, TAB2, TAB3 and want to display a few fields from all 3 tables on one record in a block. TAB1 is the controlling table: it contains an ID which is used to retrieve the corresponding fields from TAB2 and TAB3. ID is the unique key for all tables. TAB1 is related to one row in TAB2. TAB1 is related to one row in TAB3.

I want to display more than one record at a time and be able to update any of the non-key (VAR1..VAR4) fields. For example,

   TAB1.ID  TAB2.VAR1  TAB2.VAR2  TAB3.VAR3  TAB3.VAR4
   TAB1.ID  TAB2.VAR1  TAB2.VAR2  TAB3.VAR3  TAB3.VAR4
   TAB1.ID  TAB2.VAR1  TAB2.VAR2  TAB3.VAR3  TAB3.VAR4
              .
              .
              .

   TAB1.ID TAB2.VAR1 TAB2.VAR2 TAB3.VAR3 TAB3.VAR4 I tried using a master-detail relationship but it doesn't give me what I want. It displays the information not as expected.

I thought of creating a view which contains all of the fields and copy the contents of the view to dummy items, so they can be updated... then update the base tables behind the scenes. Or creating a block using table 1 and use a Post-Query trigger to populate the values(from table 2 and 3) into dummy items and then update the tables behind the scenes. This seems like an awkard way to do something which doesn't seem that unusual. Is there an easier way to do this.

Thanks in advance.

--

PGY  (Opinions expressed are mine and mine alone)
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#  Paul Young                                                  #

#  youngpa_at_statcan.ca                                          #


#  Statistics Canada                                           #


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Received on Thu Jan 11 1996 - 00:00:00 CET