Posted by Jerry Stuckle on 02/23/06 21:31

d wrote:
> "Dale" <dale.drinkard@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1140703564.436036.79490@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
>
>>I'm not sure I'm even thinking about this the right way, but here goes:
>>
>>I have a table of users. Each one of these users may be associated
>>with none, one, or many records in another table I call a todo table.
>>table user = 'id', 'name', 'bla bla bla','todo_list'
>>table todo = 'id','title','other info'
>>
>>Suppose user 'id=1253' has on his todo list items 756,241, and 672. I
>>create a string 756,241,672 and store that string in the user's
>>todo_list field. Then when I want to display the todo items I get the
>>string with a query, bust it up into an array, iterate the array and
>>query the todo table.
>>
>>I have a gut feeling I'm making it way more complicated than need be.
>>But I can't think of any other way to do it
>
>
> You're nearly there. Instead of storing a comma-seperated list of IDs, use
> a third table, say "chores" or something that fits in with your data. Give
> that table 3 columns - an ID, a user ID, and a todo ID. To link a user with
> a task, insert their ID and the task's ID into that table. To get the
> user's tasks, simply join the chores table with the todo table, and search
> for a particular user ID. That's a much more efficient way of storing such
> relationships.
>
> Is that cool?
>
> dave
>
>

You don't even need an id column in the third table. Just user id and
todo id are sufficient. Primary key would be both columns.

Link tables generally don't have an id associated with each entry.

--
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Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex@attglobal.net
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