A Design Question

Hi

I am currently trying to decide how to design by tables within a database. The two choices I basically have are:

1. Create multiple tables like:

TABLE_A
(

    COL_A,COL_B,COL_C,COL_D,COL_E,COL_F )

2. Create a single table like:

TABLE
(NAME,VALUE)
where the NAME is effectively the name of TABLE_A.COL_A, TABLE_B.COL_B etc.

The reason why option 2 is favourable is that we will be regularly adding new datafields (columns in option 1).

The problem is, most of the queries we will be running will consist of:

SELECT * from TABLE 1, TABLE 2, TABLE 3 ... WHERE
1.COL_A = VAL_1
AND
2.COL_B = VAL_2
AND
3.COL_C = VAL_3
....

as opposed to:

SELECT * from TABLE_A
WHERE
COL_A = VAL_1
AND
COL_B = VAL_2
AND
COL_C = VAL_3 My concern is the performance impact of using multiple aliases like this. Does anyone have any feeling as to whether the performance impact will be significant?

Thanks

Vijay Received on Mon Aug 23 1999 - 15:12:13 CDT