create a primary key in an existing table that currently does not have one.

leah

I encountered problem when i tried to create a primary key in an
existing table which does not have one yet. There are too many records
in it and it's hard to find out which one is 'duplicated'.
I'm not sure whether, if there is any duplicate records in the table.
How can i solve this problem?

Thanks
leah

Nov 7 '06 #1

lesperancer

1)
create the primary key and let access tell you if there a conflict

2)
create a query that counts the number of times each value of the field
that will become the primary key exists, ie
SELECT tblItem.itemId, Count(tblItem.itemId) AS CountOfitemId
FROM tblItem
GROUP BY tblItem.itemId
ORDER BY Count(tblItem.itemId) DESC;
leah wrote:

I encountered problem when i tried to create a primary key in an
existing table which does not have one yet. There are too many records
in it and it's hard to find out which one is 'duplicated'.
I'm not sure whether, if there is any duplicate records in the table.
How can i solve this problem?

Thanks
leah

Nov 7 '06 #2

Allen Browne

See:
Finding Duplicates in an imported DBF
at:
http://allenbrowne.com/xbase-04.html

--
Allen Browne - Microsoft MVP. Perth, Western Australia.
Tips for Access users - http://allenbrowne.com/tips.html
Reply to group, rather than allenbrowne at mvps dot org.

"leah" <le******@yahoo.comwrote in message
news:11**********************@m73g2000cwd.googlegr oups.com...

>
I encountered problem when i tried to create a primary key in an
existing table which does not have one yet. There are too many records
in it and it's hard to find out which one is 'duplicated'.
I'm not sure whether, if there is any duplicate records in the table.
How can i solve this problem?

Nov 7 '06 #3

leah

Thanks for the replies.
It's working.
Thanks for the URL too.
Thanks again.

leah

Nov 8 '06 #4