Is this De-Normalization?

We have a table, call it DataParent. Another table, call it DataChildren, contains foreign keys to DataParent. You get the idea that this is a one-to-many relationship like the well-known Order and LineItem pair.

In a discussion regarding increasing performance, the idea was brought up to pull each of the DataChildren items into the DataParent table by using a fixed number of columns, call them DataChildren1-N in DataParent. Leave unused slots null and only allow N DataChildren per DataParent.

I understand this to be First Order de-normalization - we are putting an array, set or tuple into a table. I was told that this was not the case but did not get an explanation.

Any insights appreciated.

TIA,
Tom. Received on Mon Dec 01 2003 - 19:36:23 CET