Viewing and Updating Data in Tables

For table design view, clicking the table data view tool switches to data view (or go via the View menu). If you are not in design view, you can go straight to data view by double-clicking on the the table under the Tables tab, or by right-clicking on the table and selecting Data View. In data view you can view data, and usually update and insert (see the first appendix for a discussion of the issues involved); suffice it to say here that if you created one of the columns with the pseudo-type Primary Key then update and insert will be possible.

Data can be entered in the usual sort of way. Table data view is set up so that whenever you move between rows, any changes you have made to the row you are leaving are saved to the database. The contents of a field is checked for validity when you leave the field (but remember the comments about server-specific types make above); the contents of all the fields in a row are checked when you leave the row. There are tools on the toolbar for the various record navigation operations; first, previous, left, last and so forth.

Tool Icon Function
Go to first record
Go to previous record
Go to next record
Go to last record
Insert new record
Delete record
Save current record
Start search
Execute search
Cancel search
Reload table

Clicking the Start search button will clear the current row. You can then enter search criteria, and click the Execute search button, whence Rekall will find and display those rows which match the criteria. As well as exact values (like 42 or Fred) you can enter expressions like >12 into numeric columns and F% into text columns ( This is the underlying standard SQL notation for a partial string match. An option to use the Unix-like * wildcard will be added at a later date. )

The table below shows the three database tables that are used in the Orders database. Client contains details about each client; Products contains information about each product; and Orders list clients' product orders.

The illustration below shows the Client table after a few rows of data have been added. As on the table design form, there is a scroll-bar which marks the current row and so forth.

Note that since the first column was specified as Primary Key, you do not need to enter a value; when the record is inserted, a value will be generated (in this example by MySQL via the auto-increment column type.

A row can be deleted by right-clicking in the left-hand most column and selecting delete, or by clicking in any field in the row and then clicking the delete tool in the toolbar. You can also select multiple rows for deletion using the normal Ctrl-Click and Shift-Click methods.