Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 4-8. Notice that the line between the two Table Occurrences is straight on the Lease
Agreement end and has a “fork” at the Payment end. This crow's foot helps you know
which is the parent and which is the child side of the relationship. But how does FileMaker
know which is which? Lease Agreement's agreementID field has the Auto-Enter Serial
number option turned on, which is standard operating procedure for a field that's meant to
be used as a parent table key field. Payment's agreementID isn't set as a serial number, so
FileMaker knows that it's pointing to the child table's key field.
If naming fields in both tables with the same name seemed confusing as you were do-
ing it, you've just seen why it's a good idea. In a large or complex database, some
tables can have many key fields for relating to other tables. But if you use the same
name in the child table as the key field in the parent table, it's very easy to find the
proper key field and then drag a line between the two tables.
NOTE
Purists will say that the “tables” you just connected by their fields are really
table occur-
rences
. Turn to
Understanding Table Occurrences
to find out why.
