These last few days I've been trying to get kexi installed. I gave up on Base after 3 weeks, when it could not do what I was able to do on M$Access 13yrs ago.

Now that I have it running, and I must say I like the way it is laid out, the first thing I want to be able to do is create an intermediate table with 2 fields combining as the primary key to deal with a many to many relationship. This is where I came unstuck with Base. Can I do this easily in Kexi using the GUI?

I tried various google searches based around kexi "primary key" "foreign key" "many to many" but found nothing.

Cheers
Max

Google for 'kexi combo boxes' and the result is, among others:
http://old.nabble.com/Documentation-for ... 56820.html

We need this HOWTO on http://userbase.kde.org/Kexi/Tutorials, please someone contribute - every month someone asks about the topic...

Thanks Jarosław
I've done a lot more reading and discovered the "proper" terms for what I want to do.

I want to be able to create a composite primary key of 2 or more columns, in a link or transitive table, to deal with a many to many relationship.
Can this be done in the GUI or do I need to spend a lot of time learning SQL?

Thanks
Max

msjs wrote:I want to be able to create a composite primary key of 2 or more columns, in a link or transitive table, to deal with a many to many relationship.
Can this be done in the GUI or do I need to spend a lot of time learning SQL?

Max, composite keys are not possible to create in Kexi nor Kexi expects their existence in opened database, so unexpected more or less harmful behaviour can occur. If you depend on the feature, I am afraid the current solution is using other tools, e.g. with web-based interfaces. Later Kexi would be able to reuse your databases without even importing/exporting.

jstaniek wrote:
Max, composite keys are not possible to create in Kexi nor Kexi expects their existence in opened database, so unexpected more or less harmful behaviour can occur. If you depend on the feature, I am afraid the current solution is using other tools, e.g. with web-based interfaces. Later Kexi would be able to reuse your databases without even importing/exporting.

Thanks Jarosław
Sorry to pester but please can you explain what you say, I don't follow.
1. Did you mean Kexi can't create them and it can't even understand them and that is why you would expect harmful behaviour ? OR
2. Did you mean Kexi can't create them and if you try you would expect harmful behaviour ?

When you say later, do you mean you plan to add this or Kexi can follow/work with, composite keys once they have been created by some other tool.

Kexi can't create them and it can't even understand. Kexi cn break your design (overwrite it) on save or break your data if the database was alterad externally (so deeply).

If you ask, we do not release unfinished, potentially harmful features.

msjs wrote:When you say later, do you mean you plan to add this or Kexi can follow/work with, composite keys once they have been created by some other tool.

It's the wish of all of us, yes.

OK Got you! I'll keep an eye on updates in the future. So what happens when one imports a .mdb file that has a composite key in it? Is it messy or does Kexi ignore this?

I've been having a really good look around and I did notice MySQL Administrator can create the table with composite keys from the GUI.
In the mean time I think I'll try MySQL Administrator to create the database and xataface to interact with it.

Thanks again
Max

msjs wrote:OK Got you! I'll keep an eye on updates in the future. So what happens when one imports a .mdb file that has a composite key in it? Is it messy or does Kexi ignore this?

I'd need to test it with the current version but Kexi would most probably create key for the first column of the composite key. Also note that Kexi only imports primary keys from mdb, so even single-column keys are ignored too.

Good to hear you have solution with MySQL Admin.

Gave up on MySQL Administrator (too flaky) and xataface (nice idea but...). Tried Base first, then kexi, then glom and a few others along the way. Looks like either, I got to learn SQL which I really don't have the time for or put XP back on my machine and go back to access which I don't really want to do either or have my data in a flat file with lots of redundant data. Kexi appears the best out of the FOSS Linux apps but has a way to go before it can be really useful to me.

I'm not a coder, but I can get the gist of what is happening from code. I could come up with pseudocode but I think this would take too long as well.

How long do you think would it take for someone to sort out the composite primary keys? Hours, days, weeks?

msjs wrote:Gave up on MySQL Administrator (too flaky) and xataface (nice idea but...). Tried Base first, then kexi, then glom and a few others along the way. Looks like either, I got to learn SQL which I really don't have the time for or put XP back on my machine and go back to access which I don't really want to do either or have my data in a flat file with lots of redundant data. Kexi appears the best out of the FOSS Linux apps but has a way to go before it can be really useful to me.

I'm not a coder, but I can get the gist of what is happening from code. I could come up with pseudocode but I think this would take too long as well.

How long do you think would it take for someone to sort out the composite primary keys? Hours, days, weeks?

In plain SQL or in Kexi?

Please note you cannot do them in SQL with Kexi. Kexi limits set of SQL elements to a subset it exactly understands.