Re: Data design question - newbie

rob_at_benefitscheckup.org wrote:

> Then this result table
>
> user_id answerfield_id response
> 1 1 15
> 1 2 true
> 1 3 true

How do you want to mix numeric and boolean values in one column? I would always use a numeric value.

> So if something messed up I could
> easily have a situation where it looked like a user had seen Batman true
> times or enjoyed the '15' batman movies. This seems very very bad.

If things are messed up it is always bad. But it can happen with every data structure. Since you have got a table with the allowed values, it is very easy to check if the response value is good or not.

Jens Received on Sat Aug 03 2002 - 08:47:46 CDT