Re: A Normalization Question

Dan wrote:

>
>If I were to change the 'br' in 'brown' of the street name to 'cl', would
>all other references to 'brown' associated with other "objects" reflect this
>update? How would you know one way or the other how the system should
>behave without semantic considerations?
Why would it ever be necessary to change the 'r' in brown? If it was necessary to have another thing spelled 'clown,' shouldn't the correct approach be to create the new thing 'clown' in the thing table and point to the new 'thing?'

> A user might want all strings of
>'brown' changed to 'clown' and in other cases, only the name of the object
>he or she is altering.
>

If the change is a correction, just change the pointer to 'clown.' If the change is an update, one could simply add a new date/timestamp pointer to 'clown' that superceded the prior pointer. This would not only point to the correct change, but leave a history to the update.

V Harris Received on Fri Jul 09 2004 - 14:43:50 CEST