Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!think!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!udel!princeton!phoenix!englandr
From: englandr@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Scott Englander)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: dBaseIV: SET RELATION Help Needed (semi-long)
Keywords: dbase, set relation, neophyte question
Message-ID: <14714@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 20 Mar 90 20:52:23 GMT
References: <632@cica.cica.indiana.edu> <471@dbase.A-T.COM>
Reply-To: englandr@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Scott Englander)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 24

In article <471@dbase.A-T.COM> awd@dbase.A-T.COM (Alastair Dallas) writes:
>
>you say that the main reason for separating the two tables is that
>one is rather large; actually, the main reason for separating them
>should be their one-to-many relationship (one author may write
>several publications).
>
Exactly, and it appears that Michael's not taking advantage of this.  It
looks as if he's trying to put all the publications in flat-file format
in the RPUBS table, with one record per author, and up to five of the
publications on each record.  The problem with this is that the number
of publications per author is limited and unnecessarily inaccessible.

Michael:  You should keep info that's specific to an author in the R
table, and info that's specific to a publication in the RPUB table.
Have one record per publication, and have the RPUBS table point at R via
the "RID" index/relation.

I'm sorry if i misinterpreted your posting, but nevertheless hope that
other "neophytes" can benefit from this discussion even so.

-- 

                                               - Scott