indeterminate joins

slrphd

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What causes an indeterminate join type? I use the lookup wizard link tbl-A to tbl-B to give me a drop-down pick-list for entering data in a table but when I look at the relationships window, it is labeled as an indeterminate join. Is that a problem or can it be ignored? If it is a problem, I am not certain what to do about it or even why it is a problem. This seems to be very basic but I guess the nuances are lost on me. Can anyone make any suggestions? I searched the forums for indeterminate joins but only turned up one entry. Thanks.
 
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A join is indeterminate if one (or both) of the fields in the join have no indexes on which Access can base a decision about one-to-one or one-to-many relationships. If you have an index, it will be "unique" or "dups allowed" - and Access knows how to handle either one. Without an index, it has no clue.

Think of it as a decision table, fill in the boxes on both axes with unique and dupsOK, then you realize that unique x unique = 1-to-1, dupsOK x dupsOK is not allowed, and the other two boxes are 1-to-many or many-to-1. But if there is no index, there is no unique/dupsOK attribute so Access cannot decide whassup.
 

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