Re: maximum number of columns per table

On Wed, 21 Jul 2004, damorgan_at_x.washington.edu wrote:

> But heck who cares about theory ... just write the foreign keys
> and I'll accept it as the model for my next project.

I don't understand your theory here Daniel. Are you saying that if a table has to have an inordinate number of columns, you would advocate turning to this model of

        id, attribute_name, attribute_value

This model is weak in many many ways, but maybe there is, truly a good argument for it.

But, here is what I see as the model you are putting forth.

create table customer
(

        id              number
       ,attribute_name  varchar2(2000)
       ,attribute_value varchar2(2000)

insert into customer values (1, 'FIRST_NAME', 'Galen'); insert into customer values (1, 'LAST_NAME', 'Boyer');

Am I missing your point, or are you actually advocating this model?

-- 
Galen Boyer