Table Design

Aloha,

We're redesigning our store database and have hit a snag. We wanted to capture our process of buying things, but we buy different 'types' of items: books, food, music. We would like to capture specific information based on each type: number of pages in a book, volume of food, or lenght of playing time on CD. However, we couldn't(or shouldn't?) capture that on one table. Would it be better to define a table for each type?

Buy(TransNo,BuyID, VendorID, Date, Qty, Cost, AccountNo)

Book(BuyID, Title, Author, DatePublished)

Food(BuyID, Name, FoodType, Volume)

Music(BuyID, Title, Musician, Minutes, Copyright)

I'd have to pull 3 queries to find each type bought under a certain TransNo. Is this right?

Appreciate any professional help. Already have homemade Prozac.

Thanks,
Ciari Received on Thu Apr 13 2000 - 00:00:00 CEST