Re: I can't normalize these tables
Posted by: Rick James
Date: September 02, 2011 09:48AM

Plan A:
One table with nullable fields for type-B info. (The PRIMARY KEY could be an AUTO_INCREMENT.)

Plan B:
Main table contains the common info, such as company name. (The PRIMARY KEY could be an AUTO_INCREMENT.)
A second table contains the extra type-B info, and uses the same PK as the main table, but without AUTO_INCREMENT. With "FROM main LEFT JOIN secondary", you can easily and efficiently stitch the fields back together in a SELECT.

Plan C (an extension of Plan B):
N+1 tables -- one main table, then a secondary table for each 'type'. Stitching back together is messy -- either you have to know the type, or you have to do lots of LEFT JOINs and end up with lots of columns. Or it could be a UNION.

Each Plan has benefits and drawbacks.

Normalization is a nice goal, but there are many cases where you have to bend the rules.

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Re: I can't normalize these tables
September 02, 2011 09:48AM


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