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Help with the best table layout for message board
Posted by: Thor Strom
Date: November 28, 2009 04:54AM

I am currently working on a home project where I am developing a simple messaging board. For each post I need to have the IP address of the poster. What I am not sure is how the layout should be. What I have learned is to create a separate table (table 2) containing an IP ID (auto incrementing int), which the first table containing the posts points to (using foreign key), and a varchar (my choice for simplicity) for the IP addresses. Is this layout better than, say, just having a varchar as primary key in the second table or what about just having the varchar in the first table? What would be the most effective layout?

The reason that I want to have a separate table is that I also want a table containing banned IP addresses (table 3). If the first table contains the IP then I would have two tables containing IP addresses which are not linked, and I think this just looks ugly. If the second table only contains the varchar, then I have three tables all containing actual IP addresses but linked through the second table. This also seems like a weird layout. Bit if the second table contains a unique ID AND the IP address, then the table has two unique identifiers when I just really need one.

Could someone please show me the correct way of doing this?

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Help with the best table layout for message board
November 28, 2009 04:54AM


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