Re: database design question

ahh.. yes sorry,
I probably should have said, i am using mysql. the current stable release doesn't support much at all with multiple charactersets.
but the new version, soon to be the stable release will allow a different characterset for each collumn within a table.

I guess my question is,..
1) Is it bad practice and inefficient to have a large number of collumns 2) Is it bad practice to add/delete columns once your database has initially prepared.

    ie; each collumn within my table will be for a different language, and I will be adding and possibly deleting languages as part of my application. Therefore adding and deleting columns. 3) also, is this a good design for the type of queries i will be doing. ie; I will only be retrieving one of these columns per query, yet there may be 20 other columns in the row that are each of 200+ chars in size that won't get used.. will these other columns slow down my query?

thanks
dan

"Pablo Sanchez" <pablo_at_dev.null> wrote in message news:Xns92F15CB8EC01pingottpingottbah_at_209.242.64.107...
> "danjourno" <danjourno_at_hotmail.com> wrote in
> news:3e0c4f89$0$25755$afc38c87_at_news.optusnet.com.au:
>
> > i am having a problem trying to figure out which way to go with
> > adding multilingual support to my database.
>
> Depending on the DBMS vendor, you may not have to do much of
> anything. Oracle provides translation via its NLS files which are
> settable per user. Setting up the Instance with UTF8 is the ticket.
>
> Research the DBMS you'll be using and see what they provide, then you
> can decide what, if any support you'll need in the ERD.
>
> HTH
> --
> Pablo Sanchez, High-Performance Database Engineering
> http://www.hpdbe.com
Received on Sat Dec 28 2002 - 01:38:33 CET