[AccessD] Normalization discussion

Everything is mostly one to one, with a few one to many -- haven't run into
a single many to many yet. This should be a simple shut-and-dry db, but I
just don't remember how to use Access anymore. Can I blame it on old-timers
disease?

The parent table will list each animal by name and species. Beyond that,
we'll track its acquisition (three different ways to acquire them), their
general health, diet, and so on. But everything leads back to the
individual animal.

I have the tables in and then my brain shuts down. It's not like riding a
bike apparently... :)


Susan H.


On Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 9:21 AM, James Button <jamesbutton at blueyonder.co.uk>
wrote:

> That does assume that, if the FK is to point to a unique PK, then the
> child rows
> are ONLY associated with a single row of the Parent.
>
> As I've found out that is not always the case!
> As in with animals there is genus and specific breed, as well as just
> locale or
> sexual differentiation
>
> JimB
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Susan Harkins
> Sent: Friday, August 29, 2014 2:07 PM
> To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> Subject: [AccessD] Normalization discussion
>
> I'll spend the morning rereading the book Martin and I wrote, brushing up
> on the normalization part. I've forgotten a lot of the basics. I'm writing
> an animal tracing database in Access and I'm trying to remember if it
> matters where the fk goes. Now, I remember its purpose and all that, but it
> would be so much simpler if I could just drop them all into the main table
> instead of adding a fk to all the child tables to the main table -- I think
> anyway.
>
> So, I've got a main table of animals and all of the remaining tables are
> child tables of a sort and a few lookup tables. Is it reasonable to just
> add a fk to all those child tables in my parent table?
>
> I just don't remember. I haven't built a database in... seriously... 10
> years? It's been long enough that I'm really struggling.
>
> Susan H.
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