Re: Front end options & database design

From: ianal Vista <ianal_vista_at_hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2006 03:05:16 GMT
Message-ID: <Xns975DC23D667B7ianalvistahotmailcom@70.169.32.36>

anasttin_at_excite.com wrote in news:1138846252.384739.179300 @z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:

> Hi,
>
> I need to set up a generic table in Oracle that allows users to enter
> data that can later be retrieved in reports.
>
> I was thinking of a 3 column table in this structure:
>
> DATE,ITEM,VALUE
>
> figuring that you can store anything in this way because ITEM can be
> anything and you can have multiple instances of a particular value by
> having a new date.
>
> Does that seem reasonable?

NO!

I suspect that you've never opened the Oracle Concepts Manual It can be found at http://tahiti.oracle.com

Oracle supports dozens of different data types & a single datatype for "VALUE" would be woefully inadequate for anything beyond a brain dead "application".

I suggest that you stick with just flat text files; which it appears is how you view data processing. Received on Wed Feb 01 2006 - 21:05:16 CST