Re: Help with Paradox 9 table schema

Gotta tell you, your information on setting the work directory to the
/child/ really blows my mind. And it makes perfect sense in the Paradoxian
Universe.

My problem is: your approach is the result of a well-thought-out design. My
approach is the result of random hacking. Example: so I have a travel diary
app, just for me, very usable. Hey! I could link it to my main photography
database and suck in all the photos I took that day! Then I could link it
to the invoice database and see how much money I made! (If any :-( .) Very
cool! So I now have yet another subdirectory, aliased as :TRAVEL:.

I have 13 such sub-databases. And that's how it works in Happy Hacker Land!

I am irritated by your discussion on how it could all work anyway, mainly
because it would make Windows a really neat environment if it ran that way,
but it doesn't. Nevertheless, I am left with the nagging feeling that it
*could* work, and maybe it's only a rainly Sunday project away.

Well, nothing wrong with dreaming. In ten days I go to Prince Edward
Island, one of the most beautiful spots on the planet, for four weeks. Yay!

--
Jim Hargan


On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 07:18:33 +1000, Robert Molyneux wrote:

Jim Hargan wrote:
Much here that is new to me! Like you, I use a lot of sub-directories for
self-contained child databases -- so everything I use is always aliased,
and therefore ends up hard coded.

Jim Hargan
Hi Jim,

If you change the working directory to the child database, when you do
the linkage of tables for lookups you do not need to use aliases. From
then on, Paradox simply assumes that the main table and the lookup table
are in the same directory, and does not store the pathway.

Then you can reset the working directory, and still reference the tables
using aliases, with all relationships working correctly.

If you do use aliases, you can move the database from one system to
another provided that you can map the location to the same letter on the
new system as on the old. For example, I used to have all my tables
nicely set out in directories, heavily cross-referenced with aliases,
and all saved in Q:\Database_Directory. So long as I could snaffle the
Q:\ mapping there was no problem. But of course, generally this is not
acceptable.

Some years ago I suggested in this forum that (a) aliases were a really
great concept, and (b) the way they were turned into hard-coded paths
was a really great boo-boo - and got all sorts of strange responses...

In the Amiga OS (now THERE was a great OS) you could define symbolic
paths that all software including SuperBase (quite a good RDBMS) could
use - so you could have My_Main_Database and My_Handy_Lookup_Tables and
so on configurable. The nearest that M$ OS has are things like
MyDocuments and shares - but you really need to be able to define shares
within shares.

It would be handy to have a "directory" / "module" concept in CS
databases - that is, be able to put tables into logical groupings within
one CS database - maybe already there?
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Help with Paradox 9 table schema
    ... Jim Hargan wrote: ... self-contained child databases -- so everything I use is always aliased, ... If you change the working directory to the child database, when you do the linkage of tables for lookups you do not need to use aliases. ... you can move the database from one system to another provided that you can map the location to the same letter on the new system as on the old. ...
    (comp.databases.paradox)
  • dynamic mail alias lists?
    ... I use sendmail) map an alias to the run of a process that returns the ... in place of or in addition to aliases, but I still don't see a way to ... A database of users in different ... Please let me know if this is possible--or, for that matter, if I'm ...
    (freebsd-questions)
  • Re: Selecting back end(s) to use
    ... different database. ... > combined reporting application for a group of identically structured BE's. ... > What I would like to accomplish is that when user selects the BE's he/she ... > Does the FE application has to have aliases already setup for the BE ...
    (microsoft.public.access.modulesdaovba)
  • Re: viewing existing aliases
    ... sp_helpuser command will have you valid alias users in the database ... My boss loves to use aliases. ...
    (microsoft.public.sqlserver.security)