Re: Database Design Problem...

Just my own two cents worth: book do NOT have unique names across all books. Therefore a unique id is needed. For the person querying the ORDER table, a simple join of ORDER.book_id to BOOK.book_id will let him extract the book_name column as well.

Rachel

Daniel Pasto wrote:

> Jimmy (c6635500_at_comp.polyu.edu.hk) wrote:
> > However, one day, a person ask me, "Why you put book_id in the table
> > BOOK? book_name is unique all the time, why you create additional column
> > (book_id) in table BOOK? Moreover, I don't know which book is from the
> > table ORDER since it contains book_id only. book_id is meaningless. Why
> > don't you delete the book_id column in table BOOK and replace book_id
> > with book_name in table ORDER?"
>
> I'll go with the others and say to use the ID and to add a seperate table
> for authors and to cross reference authors and books, but also:
>
> If you are likely to have people like that looking at the database, how about
> creating a view to build what he wants while keeping the better design for the
> actual data?
>
> Dan
Received on Tue Mar 17 1998 - 00:00:00 CST