>>>Thanks a lot in advance.
>>
>>I would use RI even for the simplest of applications - it is easy to use, and it does give you some advantages (data integrity, simplification in some cases through cascading delete).
>>
>>Especially for more demanding applications, I would ADDITIONALLY put validation rules to do some checks before RI kicks in; this is to avoid the user getting unintelligible (for him) messages like "trigger failed".
>
>BTW, do you think I'm OK using native RI?
Yes. Other programs like TaxRI give you additional benefits, but that might not be relevant for a small system.
> And how should I easily move my database changes without using SDT?
Personally, I keep an empty copy of the database, and I have a program that basically does an APPEND FROM for each table, from the user data to the empty structure (which is in a temporary directory, of course).
I can't publish it here, because it relies heavily on VFX functions, but perhaps you can do something similar.
Note that if there is a parent-child relation (and if there is an "R" in the third part of RI restrictions), the parent table has to be copied before the child table.
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)