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Lots of Fields or lots of records



 
 
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Old March 12th, 2010, 12:25 AM posted to microsoft.public.access.tablesdbdesign
PieterLinden via AccessMonster.com
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Posts: 307
Default Lots of Fields or lots of records

DawnTreader wrote:
Hello All

i have a table that as it is currently designed has a huge amount of fields,
and as time goes on i am sure that the number of fields might change to
include more.


Dead giveaway. This structure is absolutely wrong. I once had to deal with
tons of databases set up like this and it wasn't pretty. You would probably
be better off with something like

Person---(1,M)---Evaluation----(1,M)-----SkillRating----(M,1)----Skill---(M,1)
----SkillGroup


SkillRating(EvaluationID, SkillID, Rating(0-5))

Most everything in your list is a *record* in the "Skill" table (like
Electronics 1, Electronics 2, etc)

You can pretty much tell your structure is wrong if...
1. you need to modify your table structure continually as you store new facts.

2. querying the database is a *nightmare* - for example, show me all of
Person X's skills that are above 3. What SkillGroup are most of them in?
You can't do it if you store the Skills in field *names*. Facts belong *in*
the table (in a record), not *on* it (in a column name).

--
Message posted via http://www.accessmonster.com

 




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