alicej@cbnewsc.att.com (Alice J. Ramsay) (01/22/91)
We recently acquired an IBM-compatible PC for home, so I am eager
to try some things that I have learned to do at work. However, the
database that I know from work is UNITY, which is UNIX(tm)-based.
I am not knowledgable about the various databases that are
available, so I am looking to this newsgroup for help.
I want to find a commercially-available database package that is
comparable to UNITY. In particular, I want
1. to be able to link two different databases to form a new
database ('ujoin' command in UNITY)
2. to be able to make one record out of multiple records
where all field values of each record are the same, except
for the field on which the "merge" is being done; the
different values of that field are in a list separated by a
specified separator ('merge' command in UNITY)
3. to be able to do the opposite of the previous operation:
make several records out of one record, where all the
records have the same values in all fields, except for the
field specified. The specified field has a list of values
separated by a specified separator, and the new records
will each contain just one of those values in the list in
the specified field ('unmerge' in UNITY)
Now I imagine that the first item is fairly common, I've seen it
called "linking" in the manual for the database we received with
the computer. However, the other two are a problem, because
(A) I don't know how common they are, and (B) I don't know what
other people would call them (in catalogs, etc.). The places I've
seen "merge" mentioned seem to mean something entirely different.
I looked through a shareware catalog, but being unfamiliar with DB
jargon, I could not determine whether what I wanted was there.
I didn't get a UNIX PC because my husband is not a "mush-head" as
he calls me, and finds UNIX unfriendly to the casual computer user,
which is probably true.
Any suggestions? Please respond by email, as I do not read this
newsgroup. Thank you in advance.
--
Alice J. Ramsay att!ihlpm!alicej or alicej@ihlpm.att.com
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Naperville, IL 60566 (708) 979-1665
Home: 590 S. Fairfield Ave, Lombard, IL 60148 (708) 953-1013