>Jim,
>
>I understand that this approach does serve you well Jim, but on the other hand I think it's wrong to FORCE everyone to use generated primary keys. After our last conversation regarding this subject I did discover some problems that wouldn't have arised when using your approach. But saying that PKs should have no meaning outside the database is too farfetched to me. Virtually none of the learning books which handles the relational model do emphasize the use of generated keys. IMO it violates it to some extend.
>
>Walter,
>
Walter,
I don't want to discuss this in depth nor to force anyone and the only book I've had for years is "The Hacker's Guide to VFP3" so I don't know what books say. This is just my personal viewpoint.
Primary key is a necessity and it was before VFP. We had a need to have a field that supports integrity and still be sure users don't tamper with it (I don't mean users cannot tamper with it in anyway - just through normal app interfaces). Since foxpro I also use generated keys and support the idea that they should be unique and need no meaning to the user (my users even don't see it at all). Rest of the fields are users'. They can freely change them and we both don't worry about integrity.
Cetin
