Re: Structuring attributed data-fields

Angus Monro wrote:
> OK, you're half-right! I'm dealing with a legacy system whose
> persistence is managed by a non-relational database, and those
> responsible for the legacy system have prefered to do the analysis in
> their head. For the record, we are moving the system to a relational
> db and I've managed to slip into the project plan a sizeable slab of
> time for analyzing, re-modelling and documenting the data.
> Nevertheless, the data and the relationships are pretty well-known.
> e.g.
> A Flight has n:1 relationship with an Airline.
> [...]

Ok. That's good. But actually you should also include the meta-data into that schema. And that probably already says what my answer is; store the meta-data explicitly. If you don't, you will create a lot of reduncancy and update problems. As you yourself already pointed out, things are already quite unnormalized as they are and this would only make it worse.

If your boss doesn't like the word 'meta data' try 'representation data' :-).

-- 
  Jan Hidders