Posted by Colin McKinnon on 12/28/05 00:56

Schraalhans Keukenmeester wrote:

> I have a question about the design of a specific mysql database.
> My newsserver hasn't got many specific mysql related newsgroups and
> those who are supported don't seem to be very active.
<snip>
> I suppose I have to create tables for products, brands, types,
> categories, but then there are the details. Should I simply throw all
> possible details for all products in one table or is there a better way
> ? (Currently I can't see any other approach then to create a table for
> each product category, and that seems rather unelegant/inefficient.
>

It's dead simple - you normalize your data. There's no end of books or web
pages on the topic.

Now of course there's more than one valid normailzed strucure for a
relational database, but once you get that far you should know how to
decide which is the most apposite solution.

C.

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