Hi all.

I'm in the beginning stages of learning relational database design (in Access) and am trying to understand the concept of referential intregrity.

I can see why this is important to insure the integrity of the data, so that foreign keys aren't left pointing to nowhere.

However, by default, Access has it turned off, whereas it seems like one would want to use it, more often than not.

Under what conditions would it be appropriate to having it turned off (i.e. no referential integrity)?

Any help would be appreciated.

if no 2 tables are or would be used together then they don't need to be linked

ie if u have a lookup table(a list)

also remember don't do many to many as it means your normalisation is wrong..
no one can stress to anyone enough how imortant normalisation is, as it can result in a right balls up