Newbie Table relationship question 1

[grx21]

I have two related tables, the relationship is one-to-many.

Tbl.distributor: distributor_id, distributor_name, city, phone, email_address

Tbl.order: order_id, distributor_id, order_date, ship_method, ship_date, po_number

What I don’t understand is the following: After the distributor information has been inserted into the tbl.distributor how does the distributor_id end up in the order table as well?

--grx21

 

[twcman]

whenever a distributor places and order they do something to identify themselves....either log in or input a distributor id.

when the order is placed, the distributor_id is inserted into the order table with the rest of the order.

The only dumb questions are the ones that are never asked

 

[grx21]

twcman thanks for answering my question. What if i were to use two sql queries one to enter the initial distributor record such as:
INSERT INTO DISTRIBUTOR
(distributor_name, city, phone, email_address)
VALUES
('Joe Inc.', 'This City', '555-1212', 'thisemail@thisemail.com')

and then run another query to go ahead and enter the distributor_id in the order table to form the relationship between the two tables (tbl.distributor & tbl.order) although no orders have been placed just yet such as:
INSERT INTO ORDER
(DISTRIBUTOR_ID)
SELECT DISTRIBUTOR_ID
FROM DISTRIBUTOR
WHERE (DISTRIBUTOR_ID = DISTRIBUTOR_ID);

Would that pose any problems later when an order is placed?

--grx21

 

[twcman]

If no order has been placed then there is no reason to insert into the order table. Just do the insert into the distributor table and wait for the distributor to enter an order.
then all you do is query the distributor table for the distributor_id and insert into the order table. You would not want non-orders in the order table.

The only dumb questions are the ones that are never asked

 

[grx21]

Good point. Thanks for all your help.