[AccessD] Gender (was: Mucking around)

Hi all,
Just to add to the list of Genders.

I also have B(oth) and (E)ither.
For example, a person comes on with Title of Dr (Doctor). Gender can be
E(ither). A list of Mr & Mrs at the same address can be B(oth).
Depends on what your database is serving up.  SQL can then include (for
example) all Males and include those where Gender = "E" or "B" if your
circumstances require it.  A person marked as U(nknown) would - in some
circumstances - not be included.


Also, for me a Lookup Table is a discrete list of items which are seldom
changed (almost static if you like) referenced for many main records as a
PKID.
A non-lookup table is user data comprising the main purpose of the mdb.


When I clear down user-data, I leave the lookup tables as they are not
user-specific.


Examples are: Titles, Genders, Prefixes, Suffixes

I always have a single maintenace form for these type of lookup tables
(simple LupID, DataDesc) which is populated depending on the reason why it
is being called.  It also has an "Accept" button which is hidden when in
maint mode but visible when called from a NonInList function.


Does that make sense?


Max


-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Gustav Brock
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 6:16 PM
To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Gender (was: Mucking around)

Hi Jim et al

Further, you may have to handle people who have been through a gender
change. For these you may operate with an original or biological gender (for
the doctor and the health care) and the legal or official (new or current)
gender for anyone else. Now, as you only can change gender from  M to F or
from F to M (or back in rare cases), all that is needed is a Boolean field,
GenderChange, which normally is False but will have to be set to True for
those in question.
Then, as the biological gender is fixed, you have:

  GenderLegal = GenderChange Xor GenderBiological

which even leaves the subtle choice wether to handle Male as True and Female
as False - or vice versa - to you, while Unknown as Null always will return
Null.

/gustav


>>> JHewson at karta.com 27-09-2007 18:18 >>>
I put gender in a lookup table, because in several databases, the person who
enters the data is unsure of the gender of the person.  Sometimes the name
gives a clue to the gender of the person, but not always.  Hence, the third
choice is Unknown and I can make it the default.

Jim
jhewson at karta.com 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Robert L. Stewart
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 10:44 AM
To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com 
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Mucking around

Mark,

Actually "mucking it up" if you do it any other way.
It is called normalization.  Let me guess, you wanted
to put all of the lookups into a single table and use
something like a category and then queries at each
combobox to limit them to a category. Why has this
design not died the death it deserves? Why do people
continue to try and use it?

Also a dogmatic Sagittarian, and a normalization purist.

And, yes, I have separate tables for things as simple
as Name Suffix. I do not care if there are only 3 or 4
records in the table. About the only thing I do not put
in a lookup is gender. And if someone comes up with a
3rd alternative, I will probably change that to a table
also. :-)

Robert

At 11:05 AM 9/26/2007, you wrote:
>Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2007 11:34:08 -0400
>From: "Susan Harkins" <ssharkins at gmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [AccessD] Mucking around
>To: "'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'"
>         <accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
>Message-ID: <46fa7bd4.2486460a.7e7f.0c93 at mx.google.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="US-ASCII"
>
>I would too, but mostly because the dogmatic Sagittarian in me likes it
that
>way. ;)
>
>Susan H.
>
>Simply put -yes.
>
>
>I meant if you had 30 completely different, not related drop downs...would
>you create 30 lookup tables?
>Example of dropdowns: State,Phone Type,Status,Name Prefix,ect...



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