what are looping relationships

Hi, Nic,

Thanks for posting to the QuickBase Community! A simple "looping relationship" is when a table is both a parent and a child of the same table. For example, Table A is a parent of Table B, and Table B is a parent of Table A. That's just one simple example of a looping relationship. Usually, there are more tables involved:



Table A ---> Table B -----> Table C ----> Table D -----> Table A



The above example is also a looping relationship because Table A is a parent of Table B, and -- through Tables C and D -- Table A is also a descendant of Table B.

Another common example we see is:

Table A ----> Table A

In this example, a table is related to itself, so it is always creating a loop.

The reason looping relationships don't work with Copy Master/Detail becomes clear if you think about my first, simple example:

Table A ------> Table B

Table B ------> Table A

If we set up Copy Master/Detail to copy a from Master (A) to Details(B), we encounter a problem. (B) is also a master, and so has details (A), which will then also need to be copied. But then details (A) is also a master and has details that need to be copied. In other words, we end up in an infinite loop and continue copying records until the table size limit is reached.

For this reason, Copy Master/Detail won't work with looping relationships. However, If you receive a looping error, you can use the Advanced Options settings in Copy Master and Detail Records to specify which relationships to copy, which can be used to avoid the loop and allow the button to work.

Hopefully, you find this information helpful!

Thanks,
Gene Bixler

QuickBase Cares Team

This was helpful, but you should make sure your button code includes "&recurse=false" to avoid the looping relationship modal error.