Question

Now this may be something I imagined, or something real either way I am stuck on what to Google for (other search engines are available….no really there are)

I was once working on some mysql tables somebody else had set up, I was working with navicat and I went to insert data into this table and got to a field that could only be populated with values from another table, had a drop down box and everything (though I know that was navicats doing) like it had some sort of coded link between the tables. This impressed me, so much so that I opened my mouth wide in awe..

I am now wondering how I do this, as it seems perfect for my linking tables, you know the id_from_table_1 links to id_from_table_2 tables. Especially with the drop down box navicat offered when this was set up, better still if it could work like a select box where I see the name of the item in the list but it inserts the id -> I know I may be asking for a little too much here, either way the first of my queries intrigues me. Was this some coded link in mysql or some function coded into navicat? either way I would very much like to recreate it, so I to can appear like a wizard to my colleges perhaps even gaining the title “Harry Potter” amongst those that see my awesome skills.

Answer 1

I found out by clicking around that I was talking about foreign keys. Once set-up properly Navicat can provide a drop-down box with the foreign table details, making data entry that little bit easier and that little less prone to human error 🙂 not to mention faster table requests which is nice 🙂

Design Table->Options(tab)->Engine->InnoDB (for both tables)
then
Design Table->Foreign Keys(tab)->Fill out various details

now when entering data into the table via Navicat on the field with the key it will show a drop-down icon, click that then hit settings and choose the data from the foreign table you want to display.

handy for relations table

now

| client_id | product_id |
--------------------------
|     1     |     23     |
--------------------------
|     1     |     98     |

is a lot easier to play with as entering a product_id in Navicat will show me the products table and let me select one, and same for the client table.

pure genius 🙂