I have a quick question to pose regarding database theory. Imagine if
you will a company that needs to keep track of 1 million users' address
books. Is it best to:
- Have a master table listing all the users' principle information
(succh as username, password, real name, address, preferences, etc.),
and then also have another table listing all of their address entries.
This means of course that if each of the 1 million users have 10 entries
in their address book the second of the two tables can reach 10 million
records.
OR 2) Again have a master table listing all the users' principle
information, but instead have a new table for each user that only lists
the address book entries for that user. This means of course that there
would be 1 million tables, each with 10 entries each.
Of these two scenarios, which would the most efficient for searching,
which would be easiest for updating, and which would be the easiest to
administer (providing that the application can perform the simple
administrative tasks such as creation of deletion of these tables).
Thanks for any info on this issue,
Clark