Hopelessly circular relationships

From: Richard Hollenbeck <richard.hollenbeck_at_verizon.net>
Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2004 20:21:29 GMT
Message-ID: <dTfKc.8044$gt1.3635@nwrddc02.gnilink.net>

I'm building a grade book program in MS-Access but I ran into a dilemma regarding circular relationships.

Courses have Activities.
Activities have SubActivities.
SubActivities have Scores
Scores are assigned to Students.
Students are in Courses.

Full Circle!

I have a table called "StudentsInClasses" with only two fields: StudentID and CourseID (both key fields) in order to join Courses with Students like a bridge between the two otherwise unrelated tables. Another table with multiple keys, called "StudentScores" is keyed to StudentID and SubActivityID. It the has only one other field in that table called "Score." There are six tables involved in this loop. Due to the nature of the relationships, I do not know how to represent it without this circularity.

Is this a problem?

I suspect it is what's causing me hours of frustration. Is this an example of a "Boyce-Codd normal form" problem? Could my problem be easily solved if I understood that normal form better?

Any help please? Many thanks.

Richard Hollenbeck Received on Sat Jul 17 2004 - 15:21:29 CDT