>Hello,
>I am using Visual FoxPro6.0, but I was using only MS Access to create Databases until now.
>So I'm used to create my links between the tables for fixed Parent Child relations. Now I see a Database Container without any links and any Primary keys, in a project where everything is done in the local Dataenvironments.
>This seems to be working fine, but I would like to know the advantages or disadvantages of both possibilities.
>Thank you for your time,
Christian,
The two approaches are NOT mutually exclusive. The database is used to create persistent relatioship that are used by the referential integrity enforcement code in the database. Teh realtions in teh Data environemnt are used to control how the data is seen in a particular form or report (it may not be the same as the persistent relationships).
For example, take the standard Customer->Invoice->Details->Invenotry relationship. How do you show the user which customers bought which inventory items? By reversing the relationship to Inventory->Details->Invoice->Customer. The former might be used as the persistent relationship for the purpose of enforcing the referential integrity of the tables, but the latter is necessary to see the informaion that is required.