I am having a problem with primary keys. I have a main table called
Transactions. It's primary key is made up of three fields (date,
account, amount) so that Access will catch any bills that I try to
enter more than once.
There is another field, transactionID, that is an autonumber assigned
to each record. TransactionID is linked to another table called
Distribution. I need this link to perform cascade updates and
deletes. When I attempt to do this, Access will not allow me to
because this field is not a primary key. Any ideas as to how I can
make this work?

Make Transactional your primary key.
(date, account, amount) are attributes of your primary key.
Semantic keys should not be used in a primary key, it is bad database
design.
You can catch your duplicates with a 'find duplicates' query

Art Yates


"delores h." <dhildebrandt (AT) shaw (DOT) ca> wrote


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Art is right, but I should point out that you can create a multiple
field index other than the primary key.
If you goto to View/indexes while in table design view you can place
an index name in the left column, and the list of fields in the right
column, one per row.
The make the name (not the fields) unique and you will have the same
situation as before. You will be prevented from entering dups.

Good Luck

Ira Solomon

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 15:46:59 GMT, "Art Yates"
<aeyates (AT) workerscomp (DOT) com> wrote: