Path: news.easynews.com!newsfeed1.easynews.com!easynews.com!easynews!newsfeed.news2me.com!aotearoa.belnet.be!naxos.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news.uia.ac.be!not-for-mail From: hidders@hcoss.uia.ac.be (Jan.Hidders) Newsgroups: comp.databases.theory Subject: Re: Database naming convention (yet another post of it, but a bit different) Date: 10 Oct 2002 14:37:48 +0200 Organization: University of Antwerp Lines: 33 Message-ID: <3da5749c$1@news.uia.ac.be> References: <3e55b51a.0210081559.4ac4c1f9@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: hnets.uia.ac.be X-Trace: naxos.belnet.be 1034253470 3205 143.169.254.1 (10 Oct 2002 12:37:50 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@belnet.be NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2002 12:37:50 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Originator: hidders@hcoss.uia.ac.be (Jan.Hidders) X-Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: hmacs.uia.ac.be X-Original-Trace: 10 Oct 2002 14:37:48 +0200, hmacs.uia.ac.be Xref: newsfeed1.easynews.com comp.databases.theory:22913 X-Received-Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2002 05:37:47 MST (news.easynews.com) In article , stu wrote: > >Slightly OT but... >Are 1 row tables a good idea for storing settings? I usually set up the >following table(s) to store settings in a database: > >Setting(pk) Value >pi 3.14159265 >maxReportSize 90 >case 12 >etc.... > >then another (sometimes I store numeric and text values in the same column) >for text settings: > >Setting(pk) Value >companyName Bums&Legs Co. >etc... > >What are the advantages / disadvantages with this structure compared to a >one row table for storing settings. I realise my design is not normalised >(at all!) but it seems to work well. Why do you think it is not normalized? As far as efficiency goes it all very much depends on how smart your database is. Normally it would hold such a relatively small table that is not updated in main memory, which would make it very efficient and avoids the overhead of having many different tables. -- Jan Hidders