Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Need Calc help

Preston

On Sat, 2011-08-06 at 14:22 -0300, Preston Smith wrote: 

> Hi Andreas,
>
> Thanks for your suggestion
>
> I know nothing about databases however I just successfully imported an 
> xls file into LO's Base. I assume the next step is to import the second 
> xls file to create a second table.
>
> Now for the difficult bit - how do I compare the record associated with 
> a College Number in one file against the record associated with the same 
> College number in the second file (should I be saying Table?)?  And how 
> do I  display the data that differs in the two entries for the same 
> College Number?
>
> Any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Preston
>
> On 8/5/2011 8:48 PM, Andreas Säger wrote:
> > Am 06.08.2011 00:50, Preston Smith wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > Hopefully someone can help me out.
> > >
> > > I maintain in Calc the regional section of a National membership file of
> > > Alumni. There are about 650 members in my regional Calc file.
> > >
> > > Each record is keyed to an unique College number and consists of about
> >
> > Calc is a calculator which may be misused as a database to some extend.
> >
> > Your terminology describes a relational database. Deriving lists from 
> > other lists referring to unique records with keys and indices has 
> > always been the most natural thing to do in relational databases.

Retrieving information from a database is called querying the database.
Often it is done using Structured Query Language (SQL). 

Once you have your tables in the database you can select INSERT >> QUERY
(Design View). This allows you to select the tables, columns from each
table, and the selection criteria for  Base to generate the actual
database query. The selection criteria can be something like Table1.ID
NOT IN Table2.ID, which I think is the selection criteria you need. You
can have more than one criteria and the other criteria do not need to
reference your others. If you wanted to include only those in California
add Table1.State = 'CA' or Table2.State = 'CA'. If any of the tables
contain columns with the same name you use dot notation like I have been
to properly identify the column you want. I used it in my examples for
completeness. If the column name only occurs in one table you can just
use the column name alone. Your query can include as little or as much
data as you want to be included in the results table. Base allows to
save the query for reuse. If you do not know SQL this is the best way to
query the database.

If you know SQL you can write your own queries by using QUERY (SQL
View). Personally, I work with SQL daily so I am more comfortable with
this option.

If you have any questions, do hesitate to ask. Databases are very
powerful tools but the first time using one can be bit daunting to use
at first, at least it was for me.

-- 
Jay Lozier
jslozier@gmail.com

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