Relationship Join Type

[speakers_86]

When I created my relationships, I just left the join type at the default. More recently, I looked at the relationships of a Microsoft template and the join types are not left at default. My db seems to be working just fine, but should I go ahead and adjust the join type?

 

[duluter]

You may want to enforce Referential Integrity in some of your joins. It helps make sure that you don't delete a record in your parent table if that record has matching records in the child table. For example, it won't let you delete Customer A from the Customers table if Customer A has orders in the Orders table. If referential integrity is on, then your orders won't ever get stranded with no matching customer.


Duluter

 

[speakers_86]

Yes, thank you. I already have referential integrity enforced. What about the join type? I have left the join type at the default for all of my relationships. Everything seems to be working, so I am not sure if I should play with the join types at all.

 

[duluter]

I see. I'm not too sure because I've only ever left them as the default (inner join). My hunch is that Access uses this join type as the default if you bring these tables into a query using the query design window. If that's the case, if you usually want inner joins, then leave them as is. Specifying the join type in the Relationships window shouldn't affect whether or not your database is working properly--it's probably just a cue to Access on what data you want pulled from these tables when joined in a query. Which you can always override in the query window anyway.


Duluter