Re: 2 people with same address - sometimes - standard data model?y

L Carl Pedersen (l.carl.pedersen_at_dartmouth.edu) wrote:

: >In article <l.carl.pedersen-1101951942230001_at_kip-2-sn-53.dartmouth.edu>,
 l.carl.pedersen_at_dartmouth.edu (L Carl Pedersen) writes:
: >> i need to track parents of students in order to send them certain mailings
: >> etc. my plan is to stick them into the same table that i use for student,
: >> as it already has all the columns i need etc. - so my table becomes a
: >> people table.
: >>
: >> my issue is this: some high percentage of these parents live together at
: >> the same address, but many do not (typically because they are divorced).
: >>
: >> for many reasons, it pains me to store *two* addresses when the addresses
: >> for two people are often the same.
: >>
: >
: > Normalization of data would suggest setting up a "household"
: >table. One possible unique key to this table would be the 9 digit zip
: >code. It may be tedious and boring to update your current zip to 9
: >digits, but it may pay-off in the future.
: >
: >Tim Crabtree
 

: i don't believe 9-digit zips are unique to a household. i think, for
: example, that two people who live next door to each other may have the
: same 9-digit zip.
 

: if you have evidence to the contrary, i'd love to see it. we are already
: moving toward 9-digit zips.

Why have a 9 digit number the means anything? I would just assign a new address record and generate a number that is the next higher one (like an invoice number) Then store this number with the people that live at that address. So Kid, Mom and Dad may have the same number in their address field or different ones.

Now how this gets in the way of presenting the data to the user is another story (that's normalization for you)... but it will save storage space.

--

// Ian (McYork)
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