Hi mark,

>Your description of indexing techniques that followed was tremendously useful and I will be keeping it as part of my development notes.

>The methods you describe are the only ones I have come across that resolve all my coding issues in this area. They appear to combine the advantages of having a primary key with all the flexibilty I had before I started to use surrogate primary keys.

I'm glad i could help.

>Do you know if any of the Frameworks will stop me working this way. Or do you know of a framework that definately will not stop me working this way. A forthcoming app is due to be my first with a bought in Framework. I dont want to buy anything that will get in the way of using this technique.

I do not know much about existing frameworks since I really like to reinvent the wheel ;-). Seriously, I don't think any framework will stop you from using this technique. If a framework relies on surrogate keys, you still can choose for the TABLE 2 option.

Walter,