Tue 22nd Aug 2006
MS Access has no LIST data type
Posted mid-morning, filed under Asides , Rants and Raves.Well, the title sums it up. There doesn’t seem to be a way to store a list of items in a Microsoft Access database. For instance, I have an item that may belong on several categories, but I can’t just have a LIST datatype, and have a list stored in here.
Instead, I’ll have to have yet another table that has relationships, which further complicates the database. And makes creating a form for entering data more difficult.
G’day Matt,
Didn’t you do some Computer Science at uni? Remember database normal forms? Slightly more complicated in retrieval, perhaps, but much easier in the updating, if you put the relationships in a separate table. Probably overkill for what seems like a very small database, I guess.
I have no idea what this project is, but why not use MySQL (in your previous post) to include self-references. If you need to use the Access form editor, I think you can still access a MySQL database using an ODBC Data Source.
Dero.
4 hours, 47 minutes after the fact.
Yeah, I was going to use SQL - the whole Access was just a test of a couple of things. I just didn’t have access to a MySQL server at the time.
I didn’t actually do any database stuff at all at Uni. I’ve picked up a couple of things along the way, but in terms of databases, I’m all self-taught. And not that well taught either.
8 hours, 32 minutes after the fact.