Re: Need some help in data design

You could benefit from taking a look at the book "Dat Model Patterns" by David Hay. He proposes a general model for assets which would cover your problem quite nicely in my opinion.

Regards, David.

masnani_at_my-deja.com wrote:

> Hi,
> I have been faced with a situation to help design a datamodel for this
> problem. I am not a very
> experience software designer and am looking for any suggestions, advice
> or leads to help me start this process.
> My main experience has been in relational database design and have an
> elementary knowledge of object oriented systems.
>
> Here is the problem -
>
> The application needs to be able to accept input from users about items
> they want to be sold using an auction site. The main problem is to be
> able to acquire all possible attributes about these items since these
> attributes will be used for making decisions.
> For eg. We would like to track, all attributes of a product like a
> watch (manufacturer,model, color etc.).A user can submit any kind of
> product including services such as consulting services as a product.
> So we have to come up with a data model to be able to store all the
> product information for all possible product types.
> I am somewhat familiar with ER modeling but not by any means an expert
> and need some advice as to where to start.
> There are 2 main problems (I am sure there are more) -
> 1. To be able to model all the product types. One approach could be to
> create tables (entities) for the major product types such as
> vehicles,computer hardware, computer software, jewelery etc. and have
> levels of subtypes for each type of object within these.
>
> 2. The other issue is to be able to generate all the possible
> attributes for all the possible products i.e there might be many
> products out there, whose attributes I have no idea of. Are any of you
> aware of any services out there which sell this kind of information.
>
> Any help would be appreciated.
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
Received on Thu Mar 16 2000 - 00:00:00 CET