EXAMPLE: Indirect Related Data Via A Join

From Dwayne Wright
www.dwaynewright.com

This example file is a duplicate of our join file example. All I have done is add the indirect relationship data to the portal row and colored it red.

In FileMaker, you can have two table occurrences see each other through the join. In FileMaker, when you drag a field into a portal, you can use a field from a table occurrence other than the one defined for the portal! In previous versions of FileMaker, this would cause you all kinds of problems. It still could in FileMaker but you can also use this to show indirect related data!

The red field in the portal is not from the join table but from the inventory table! That is to say the portal shows the line items from the join table but that last modified field is from the inventory file showing you the last time the pricing was updated for that product.

Below is the documentation about the join file example.

The relationship involves three entities ( table occurrences ) all lined up in a row. It starts off when one record in an entity ( table occurrence ) is related to many records in another entity ( table occurrence ). Each record in that entity ( table occurrence ) is in turn related to one record in another entity ( table occurrence ). Here is a classic example of how this works in FileMaker.

We have one invoice record that has many sold products on it. Each sold product is a record in the middle database entity ( table occurrence ). Each one of those sold items is related to on product in an inventory entity ( table occurrence ).

So the middle or join table occurrence will have a number of records with an invoice id and a product id. The one invoice can total a number of sold products and product can be sold many times.

There are a lot of variations of the middle /join entity ( table occurrence ) and you can have multiple middle entities ( table occurrences ). That is to say one relationship can depend on another ... that depends on another relationship. The relationship can even tunnel through the join entity ( table occurrence ).

In this example, we have one invoice record that has many sold products on it. Each sold product is a record in the middle database table. Each one of those sold items is related to on product in an inventory table.

An example file can be downloaded at ...

http://www.dwaynewright.com/blogfiles/indirect_via_join.zip
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More info about the author and FileMaker in general, contact me at info@dwaynewright.com.

© 2007 - Dwayne Wright - dwaynewright.com

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