Thread

From the Expression Engine user docs:

http://ellislab.com/expressionengine/user-guide/modules/channel/relationships.html#id12

Since an entry can have multiple parent entries in multiple channels, potentially with the same field, we may need to specify which channel we want to examine for parents. To this, use the channel parameter:

I do not understand how it is possible to have the same field name across multiple channels?  What am I missing in this statement?  What is the purpose of the channel field in the parents tag, then?

The docs should probably say: “potentially with the same field name”, as it’s the name of the field that’s in question. In other words, if you had 2 channels with a field named “body,” then EE wouldn’t know which channel you were looking for results from in your parent tag unless you specify a channel. Make sense?

Yes, that answer makes sense though am I correct that you can never have two identical channel field names, regardless of their assigned channel?

Well I guess {title} is in every channel so that’s one case.  Maybe it’s in reference to system default fields.

Yes, I’m new to EE and trying to figure it all out!  Thanks for your help.

Yes, you’re right on unique field names, my example was bad! So the fields where the names would overlap across channels would be ones like you mentioned: title, url_title, entry_date, etc…