Thanks for the reply. The only common field is the CourseID field. It is
present in all four tables, has the same type (integer), and is to be in
all cases 23 (or whatever the ID of the desired course is). My guess was
that since I limit cupssbmain.CourseID to be 23 and ask for all other
CourseID fields in the remaining tables to be equal to
cupssbmain.CourseID that this would be sufficient.
The tables have these columns (and a few others unrelated to this issue):
cupssbmain: StoryboardID, PageID, LessonID, ModuleID, CourseID
cupspages: PageID, LessonID, ModuleID, CourseID, Page_Position
cupslessons: LessonID, ModuleID, CourseID, Lesson_Position
cupsmodules: ModuleID, CourseID, Module_Position
Any advice on how to craft something better out of this? I am at a total
loss. :(
David
Hmmm, came across VIEWs while going through yet another somewhat useless
JOIN tutorial (they generally cover joining two tables, which is
trivial even for me). Do I understand it correctly that a VIEW is
similar to a temporary table without being a table per sé? Can I use
VIEWs in exactly the same way as I would use a table? I personally like
temp tables, after all they are available and why not use them, but Joe
Celko will knock down my door and strangle me. Although, in his view
anyone is a slacking idiot who doesn't do it as he mandates.
I also thought about changing Page_Position or adding a field for having
a consecutive numbering of all pages within a course. The problem with
that is that it will add more complexity when adding/moving/deleting
modules, lessons, and pages. Besides that, combining the position fields
already does give me that information.
Unless someone thinks using a VIEW is foolish I will tinker around with
that and see if I can create a single field out of the three position
fields, which obviously will make sorting on it much easier. And VIEWs
are excplicitly allowed under Celko.
David
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