User manual

74 FileMaker Pro User’s Guide
In this relationship, both Client ID and Rental Date are match fields to
the Rental Line Items table. A record in the Clients table with a Client
ID value of 1000 and a Rental Date value of 10/10/2004 will only
match those records in the Rental Line Items table where both fields
Client ID and Rental Date have values of 1000 and
10/10/2004, respectively. If Client ID fields in both tables have
matching values, but Rental Date fields in both tables do not, no
related records are returned by the relationship.
For example, a travel equipment rental database has three tables:
Equipment, a static table that stores equipment rental inventory;
Clients, which stores client names and addresses; and Rental Line
Items, which stores a record of each equipment rental, including the
equipment ID, the client ID, and the rental date. The purpose of this
database is to track equipment rentals and display all rentals by a
selected client on a selected date.
Although the database uses three tables, the multi-criteria relationship
is between the Clients and Rental Line Items tables. These tables have
the following fields:
Because the relationship is defined to allow the creation of related
records in the Rental Line Items table, users will be able to enter rental
information in an empty portal row, and FileMaker Pro will
automatically create a related record for that rental.
Relationships using comparative operators
In a comparative relationship, you use one or more of the following
operators to compare match field values in the two related tables. The
relationship returns related records when the comparison evaluates
successfully, according to the criteria you establish.
Table Field name Comment
Clients Client ID Number field, auto-enter serial
number. One of the match fields to
the Rental Line Items table
Rental Date Date field. The other match field to
the Rental Line Items table
Match fields
Match fields
Rental Line Items Client ID Number field. One of the match fields
to the Clients table
Rental Date Date field. The other match field to
the Clients table
Equipment ID Number field
Relational operator Matches these records
= Values in match fields are equal
≠ Values in match fields are unequal
< Values in the left match field are less than values in the
right match field
≤ Values in the left match field are less than or equal to
values in the right match field
> Values in the left match field are greater than values in
the right match field
Table Field name Comment
Select to allow creation of related
records in Rental Line Items table