infinite shape clause?

[James]

How could i make an infinate relationship. i.e. i want to keep track of
employee's employee's and those employee's employee's, etc... i have an
employee table that holds the EmployeeID, ManagerID. i figure i should use
the shape clause some how, but how do i get it to loop infinitly because i
don't know how many employee generation relationships there will be?

 

[Jeff Boyce]

James

I'm not familiar with some of the terminology you are using (e.g., infinite
shape).

Are you describing a relationship similar to that of family relationships?
That is, a person can have a child, that child can (grow up and) have a
child, that (grand)child can (grow up and) have a child, and so on? If so,
one way to handle this is to use two tables.

One table only lists people.

The other table lists pairs of people (using the person IDs from the first
table), plus a "relationship" indicator. (So, technically, you'd use a
third table to hold valid relationships, and just use the relationship ID in
table#2.)

 

[James]

yeah like a family tree, but with only one parent, (not a mother and a
father). in fact. just a manager and subordinate. how would i show this data
on a report once i have stored it? right now im thinking i should just have
one table of users and then store a key that relates to their manager. but
again, how would i show this in a report?

James

I'm not familiar with some of the terminology you are using (e.g.,
infinite
shape).

Are you describing a relationship similar to that of family relationships?
That is, a person can have a child, that child can (grow up and) have a
child, that (grand)child can (grow up and) have a child, and so on? If
so,
one way to handle this is to use two tables.

One table only lists people.

The other table lists pairs of people (using the person IDs from the first
table), plus a "relationship" indicator. (So, technically, you'd use a
third table to hold valid relationships, and just use the relationship ID
in
table#2.)

 

[Jeff Boyce]

James

Haven't done one of these, but I suspect if you look up BOM (bill of
materials) handling (via Google), you'll run into something you can use.

--
Good luck

Jeff Boyce
<Access MVP>

yeah like a family tree, but with only one parent, (not a mother and a
father). in fact. just a manager and subordinate. how would i show this data
on a report once i have stored it? right now im thinking i should just have
one table of users and then store a key that relates to their manager. but
again, how would i show this in a report?