[AccessD] Cascade-delete (was: Estimating Help)

Gustav Brock gustav at cactus.dk
Sat Feb 1 12:57:00 CST 2003


Hi Arthur

> .. I would never be so foolish as to turn cascade-delete on anywhere
> in any serious database :-)

That's a pity 'cause that's a very powerful tool!

Of course, as with fire and other potential dangerous tools, you must
know what you're doing and take your precautions.
Most listers, I'm sure, will vote with me that you indeed know what
you are dealing with, and I'm under the impression that you are a
frequent user of database modelling tools - so what's the trouble?

Before someone jumps on me with some horror story of unintended
deleted records let me stress that there are many (trivial) cases
where cascade-delete must be avoided; but for automatic cleaning of
linking tables or subtables it's a wonderful tool set to force with
zero code. 

(Cascade-update is another story. I've never found a use for that
except when using natural keys which I avoid by all means.)

/gustav




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