[Hardhats-members] Pointers and keys

[Thurman Pedigo]

With so much excitement, I hate to post such a mundane question as pointers and keys.  However, I have never been able to get KEYs to perform in the way I expect. I want to have file TESTFILE point to field .01 of another file so that I can use backward pointers. Further I would like to create a record in the file with a unique # to main the uniqueness of multiple instances of the same name in .01 field of the file. It seems I should be able to enter a unique # such as 12345 without having to encapsulate a new entry as the name file in quotes.  For instance if the name is DOE,JOHN  in the referenced field, I would like to enter 12346 (in field #2) to create a unique entry, then enter DOE,JOHN in field .01, separate from the first record than the 12345 and still allow the .01 field in this record to exist as “DOE,JOHN” . Is this workable? Or is this just bad policy?   I know this is sort of confused and will be difficult to sort out. Basically, I want to have field 2 as the UNIQUE ID for each record in TESTFILE, and .01 field point to a sort of parent file.   Thanks,   thurman