Variable tables
From: Google Poster <goposter_at_jonjay.com>
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 19:42:20 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <67eb6c60-22c8-4aaf-bc98-2fb9b78249c0_at_z16g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 19:42:20 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <67eb6c60-22c8-4aaf-bc98-2fb9b78249c0_at_z16g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>
This is a continuation of my whining against the relational model.
Yes, I realize that it is efficient and its theoretical background is elegant, nay, beautiful. I read all about it when I was in college.
The problem is like trying to put a round peg in the proverbial square -actually: rectangular- hole.
We deal with many different companies and have to replicate their database structure. A feature that comes to mind is the variable 'struct' in C. IIRC Oracle supports something like that. I envision a table whose fields are divided in two classes:
- common fields, which are used by all instances of such table
- a variable (or "custom" for lack of a better term) part which is specific to each case.
I would like to re-use the programs (I program with the Pro C precompiler). across the "variant" tables.
TIA, GP Received on Thu Sep 03 2009 - 21:42:20 CDT