Access Tables vs Excel Spreadsheets

[M KING]

Can two Access Tables be linked together, much the same as linking cells in
two Excel spreadsheet? What I mean by this question is, in Excel, I can link
many cells in a spreadsheet A to one cell in a spreadsheet B. When I update
the one cell in spreadsheet B, the many cells in spreadsheet A are linked and
automatically up. Can this same linking be done with the cells in two Access
Tables?

Thank you

 

['69 Camaro]

Hi.

Can two Access Tables be linked together, much the same as linking cells in
two Excel spreadsheet? What I mean by this question is, in Excel, I can link
many cells in a spreadsheet A to one cell in a spreadsheet B. When I update
the one cell in spreadsheet B, the many cells in spreadsheet A are linked and
automatically up.

Yes, you can . . . but you probably shouldn't.

If you intend the "linked cell" in table A to be a re-calculation based upon
the updated value in a record in table B, then this value in table A is a
value that should be calculated in a query only when needed for display to
the customer, not stored in a table.

If you intend the "linked cells" to have identical values in the two tables,
then this results in duplicate values, which is something that the properly
designed relational database avoids.

HTH.

Gunny

See http://www.QBuilt.com for all your database needs.
See http://www.Access.QBuilt.com for Microsoft Access tips.

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[Jamie Collins]

I think you may be alluding to a cascading FOREIGN KEY.
See ON UPDATE CASCADE in the help e.g.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-
us/assistance/HP010322141033.aspx

Jamie.