Re: How you would design the DB structure?

There is already a key which uniquely defines a specific edition of a book. The ISBN number (found on every book) can be relied upon as a unique key, where author/title cannot. Author/ISBN would therefore give you a unique author/book. The only drawback is that if you have multiple editions or bindings, the books will have different ISBN's.

It's mod-11 check digited (product add, if I recall correctly) which is why you sometimes see X as the last number. (for 10)

Just be aware that since the ISBN is not random, the indexes tend to bunch.

Louise Miller (who used to work for a major book retail chain) Received on Wed Mar 13 1996 - 00:00:00 CET