Archive records with relationships

From: Ole Laurisch <OIe.Laurisch_at_NOSPAMt-systems.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 16:05:06 +0100
Message-ID: <J_xNb.18$987.7620@news.ecrc.de>

Hi at all,

I have a complex database structure with many tables. But let's simplify the whole thing. Let us presume that we have this three tables A, B and C.

[A]-1--------n-[B]-1---------n-[C]

where "1----------n" are 1:n relations.

Now the application will add thousands of records per day in these tables. Therefor we need to archive records that are no longer needed.

Now the user can specify to archive some records (by a filter) from the table B.

How could we handle the problem, that there are references now pointing from a record in table A to a record in table B, which might not be existing any more?

One opportunity is not to delete the records in table B, but replacing them with null-values (all except the key values). But that could neither be the only nor the best solution, could it?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Many thanks in advance!

Ole Received on Thu Jan 15 2004 - 09:05:06 CST