RE: Physical Database Design - Code Tables

Dennis,  

That's no problem, then you just need a DATA_TYPE column, and make the VALUE column a VARCHAR2, or, even better a BLOB! Then you can make every column any type you'd like, and just use the DATA_TYPE column to keep track of what kind of data is stored there! ;-)  

-Mark  

PS No, I'm *not* serious! That's why I put a smiley at the end of the sentence!  

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Mark J. Bobak

Senior Oracle Architect

ProQuest Information & Learning

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which shouldn't be done at all. -Peter F. Drucker, 1909-2005  

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Dennis Williams Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 4:30 PM To: jkstill_at_gmail.com
Cc: paulastankus_at_yahoo.com; oracle-l_at_freelists.org Subject: Re: Physical Database Design - Code Tables

Paula,  

One issue I don't see mentioned is the number of columns. In my experience, some codes tables have a different number of columns than others, and those columns may have different properties (data type, column name, etc.). If you use a single codes table, then all codes must have the same columns. If at a later point, some codes are found to need an additional column, then all codes will get the added column. If you add that column, then you have to hope that all the application code will be unaffected. This isn't probably a big deal, but I think it points to the non-normalized situation that a shared code table gets you into.  

Dennis Williams

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http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l Received on Tue Nov 21 2006 - 15:42:14 CST