Bhavbhuti --

Well you've got a tiger by the tail!

The whole issue of representing hierarchical data in a relational database is fairly complex. There are various solutions, depending on a variety of factors.

What I'd suggest is the following. The Treeview control that comes with VFP presents hierarchical data in an easy to use format. Take a look at the data model which the treeview uses. That would be a normalized data model, as the control has to accept any hierarchical data.

It may be worthwhile to recode the data model and use something like a Treeview control for display and interaction.

Jay

>Thanks Jay for the response
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>1. Yes it is "Parts Explosion"
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>2. What would you suggest the thing as denormalised dbf. I have a master table with all the items, subassm., assm., etc. Table 2 hsa only the connections and the qty. used in that particular connection. Part1 uses Part5 in 2Qty., Part1 uses Part10 in 5Qty., Part2 uses Part5 in 2Qty., so on.
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>3. I wanted a tree structure report for costing purposed. The thing that worked me up is that lvl3 item qty. used will be lvl3qty * lvl2qty * lvl1qty * CostFromMaster.
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>The bissgest thing is that I would not know how many levels I may have to go. Yes I can say 10 and code for the same but when the users goes onto 11 and the whole thing falls apart.
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>Regards
>Bhavbhuti