Bad idea?

From: Stu <smcgouga_at_@yaho.com_>
Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2002 12:43:00 +0100
Message-ID: <1025091770.26426.1.nnrp-12.c2de0ffb@news.demon.co.uk>

Is the following a really bad idea? I want to reduce the number of tables in my database to make it easier to understand.

I am building a vb application over MS Acess. I am going to put all values for all combo boxes/pick lists in one table. eg:

tblList_Names
ID ListName
--- ----------

1       People
2       Car Models

tblListEntries
ID ListNameID Value
--- ------------- ------

1      1                     Bob Brown
2      1                     Stella Boy
3      1                     Tom Smith
4      2                     Ford
5      3                     Crysler

If I don't do this and I create a table for each combo/pick list I will end up with 100 ish tables with 10 values (avg). This way I will have 1 table with 1000 values. I usually like to keep my tables normalised, but on this case I think I could do the above. This will also make it easier for users to add/edit/delete values that appear in combos/picklists. What do you think?

Cheers
stu Received on Wed Jun 26 2002 - 06:43:00 CDT