ACC: How to Return Records in a Many-to-Many Relationship (106287)

SUMMARY

This article demonstrates how to design a query to return the records from one table in a many-to-many relationship where each of the records returned is related to two records in the other table in the relationship. Note that the many-to-many relationship between the two tables is broken into two one-to-many relationships with a third (junction) table.

MORE INFORMATION

The following steps demonstrate how to create a sample query to return records from one table in a many-to-many relationship:

Open the sample database Northwind.mdb (NWIND.MDB in versions 1.x and 2.0).

Create the following new query based on the Order Details table:

      Query: Test
      ---------------------------------------------------------
      Type: Select Query

      Field Name: OrderID (or Order ID in versions 1.x and 2.0)
         Total: Group By
      Field Name: ProductID (or Product ID in versions 1.x and 2.0)
         Total: Count
         Criteria: >1
      Field Name: ProductID
         Total: Where
         Show: False
         Criteria: 14 Or 21

Note that the use of the criteria "14 or 21" with a "Where" total on the ProductID field returns only those order IDs that contain either one or both of the products. The use of the criteria ">1" with a "Count" total on the same field returns only records with both products.

REFERENCES

For more information about queries, search for "criteria, queries, entering," and then "Enter criteria in a query or advanced filter to retrieve certain records" using the Microsoft Access 97 Help Index.