Join Vs Relationship - How To Create and Manage One-To-Many, Many-To-Many, and Self-Join Relationships in Microsoft Access


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Join Vs Relationship

Rolf Widmer

15 months ago

Hi there,
I have attended both the SQL 1 and 2 Seminars and the Relationship Seminar.
I have used Joins and Relationships already before, but now I am confused. Maybe I did not understand properly, therefore my (hopefully not too silly) question:
When should one use Relationships and when Joins?

Aside from that, what is the syntax behind the Subform Field Linker?

Thanks in anticipation for your precious help!
Rolf

	Alex Hedley @Reply 15 months ago
What would you say the difference is between a Relationship and a Join?

Richard Rost @Reply

15 months ago

Great question, definitely not silly. Relationships define how tables are linked permanently at the database level. They enforce referential integrity, ensuring that related records remain valid. You set these up in the Relationships window.

Joins are used in queries to pull related data together on demand. Even if tables have a relationship, you still need to use joins in queries to retrieve data correctly. You can have joins without a system-level relationship. These are called ad hoc joins.

Think of relationships as blueprints that dictate how tables should be connected, while joins are tools used when actually working with the data.

	Richard Rost @Reply 15 months ago
As for the Subform Field Linker, it works by setting the Link Master Fields and Link Child Fields properties in the subform control. The syntax behind it is essentially: `OrderSubformF.LinkMasterFields = "OrderID" OrderSubformF.LinkChildFields = "OrderID"`

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