[Kexi] Basic (?) questions on Queries

[Jarosław Staniek]

Paul Thomas said the following, On 2007-03-01 20:20:

> 1. I tried to find out wether one can create queries based on more than one 
> occurence of a table. For example, if I only have one table "Names" 
> containing a liat of names (e.g. "Jones" "Doe"), the way to build a query 
> displaying all possible pairs of names would be something like:
> 
> SELECT names.name names_1.name AS name_1 FROM names, names AS names_1;
> 
> This works when entered in SQL mode, not in Design mode where it seems that 
> one table can be added only once. Am I wrong? Is it by design?

Hello Paul,
The visual design mode does not support this (cartesian product) definition. 
You obviously are able to switch directly to data mode and see the query works 
as expected. To avoid losing the design, save the query in SQL view.
Next time, you will be able to open the query properly (but still do not touch 
design view when working with this query).

This is a note for any statement that is not (yet) supported in the design view.

> 2. Can I build a query on a query?

Simiar problem as above - not yet.

> 3. Can a query create a table or appen rows to an existing table?

Not yet.

> 4. Not related to queries, but how would you recommend creating a report 
> based on a kexi table or base ?

option 1) export to XML using a Python "Export Data to XHTML File" script and 
then perform and XSLT transformation, what can give you pdf, html, etc.

See http://www.kexi-project.org/wiki/wikiview/index.php?ScriptingHandbook

option 2) Use "Simple printouts" function for rather simple cases
http://www.kexi-project.org/pics/1.0/simple_printouts.png

In general there is no groupping yet, so do not expect that complex 
computations to be performed directly in Kexi now.

option 3) preparing custom (e.g. command line) C++ app that uses OpenDocument 
variables to popualte database data for solution like mailmerge.
See http://www.kexi.pl/media/raporty/
This is most advanced, hard but powerful solution. In Kexi 2.x such things 
will be available without a need for programming.

> My apologies if those questions have already been answered in this list. I 
> tried to find them bu could not.

Thanks for asking, we should have them soon in the FAQ...

-- 
regards / pozdrawiam, Jaroslaw Staniek
  Sponsored by OpenOffice Polska (http://www.openoffice.com.pl/en) to work on
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