How can I insert a record into a table that depends on a foreign key linking to a previous table?

Question

Following on from this question. I have a dictionary file written in XML. I've written a program in VB.NET to parse this file and store all the data in Class objects, and now I want to write a subroutine to insert all of this data into an Access database. What I'm struggling with is working out how to use SQL to INSERT all of the data.

There are 20 tables, and the main table is called Entry, which all the other tables link back to. To give a simplified example of the data structure, there is also a Keyword table, which links back to the Entry. And there is the Keyword_Priority table, which links back to Keyword. Both relationships are one-to-many, as below:

My question

I can use SQL INSERT for the Entry table to create one record. But how would I then create a record for the Keyword table, referring to the primary key of the Entry record I've just created? And how would I then create a record for Keyword_Priority, referring to the Keyword record? And so on.

This is all going to be done through VB.NET - I can't use Forms because there are 180,000+ entries to input. Is there any way to store a variable in SQL that I can refer to later?

Answer 1

you can also do it like here https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4135437/get-last-insert-id-from-access

by making use of @@identity

select @@IDENTITY

which will return the latest created ID for the database connection

OR make use of the "inbound" property that most id-columns are simply growing int values - so

select max(id) from Entry

Answer 2

INSERT INTO Entry (EntrySequence) 
VALUES ('new EntrySequence');

INSERT INTO Keyword (Keyword, EntryFK)
SELECT 'new Keyword', Entry.EntryID
FROM Entry
WHERE Entry.EntrySequence = 'new EntrySequence';

INSERT INTO Keyword_Priority (KeywordPriority, KeywordFK)
SELECT 'new KeywordPriority', Keyword.Id
FROM Keyword /* , Entry */
WHERE Keyword.Keyword = 'new Keyword'
/* AND Entry.EntrySequence = 'new EntrySequence'
   AND Entry.EntryID = Keyword.EntryFK */