Can you associate a meaning to each value in Access 2007?

Question

How do I store numbers in an Access column and then associate some meaningful string to each value?

Because I don't want to be seeing raw numbers when I can define the meaning of each value once at for all, and have those meanings displayed in the Datasheet View, like:

ID  Name      Type

1   Jack      1 (Friend)
2   Jill      1 (Friend)
3   Diago     2 (Enemy)
4   Sally     3 (Colleague)

Answer 1

You need to create a table which contains the relevant values for each number. Then simply create a relationship between the primary table and the secondary table. This would be the simplest and correct way of doing. However I have to admit I can't remember step by step how to do this in Access. However Microsoft has a fairly good article on how to do this here.

As far as the display is concerned you will create a new data view that retrieves the display value instead of the number and link everything to the view.

I am not aware of any other way to do this in Access.

Answer 2

You can create a separate table that maps a numeric value to a meaningful string, then when you display in the datasheet link the numeric value to the string using the new table:

Table: People
ID  Name      Type

1   Jack      1
2   Jill      1
3   Diago     2
4   Sally     3


Table: Types
ID  TypeString

1   Friend
2   Enemy
3   Colleague