Path: csiph.com!x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net!feeder1.hal-mli.net!border3.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!novia!news-out.readnews.com!news-xxxfer.readnews.com!news-out.news.tds.net!newsreading01.news.tds.net!86597e80!not-for-mail From: "Martin Gregorie" Subject: Re: Designing a structure Message-ID: X-Comment-To: comp.databases,comp.lang. Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.databases In-Reply-To: References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=IBM437 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Gateway: time.synchro.net [Synchronet 3.15a-Win32 NewsLink 1.92] Lines: 36 Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 15:21:26 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 96.60.20.240 X-Complaints-To: news@tds.net X-Trace: newsreading01.news.tds.net 1303917686 96.60.20.240 (Wed, 27 Apr 2011 10:21:26 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 10:21:26 CDT Organization: TDS.net Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.lang.java.databases:45 To: comp.databases,comp.lang. On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:33:58 +0000, David Segall wrote: > Thank you for the hint. Your hint indicates that you don't need a > crystal ball to understand my requirements and that you may have some > useful advice. Why are you so reluctant to give it to me? > Because he gave you the best possible advice already. To amplify what Ed said: Only you know how you need to relate addresses, phone numbers, etc, etc to persons and businesses and whether to model relationships between people and businesses. If you don't know this already, analyse the data you own until you do understand it. Then use that analysis to derive an entity-relationship diagram. Add attributes to the entities. Decide which are keys. Eliminate derived attributes. Normalise the result to 3rd normal form. Then and only then, design and code your schema, adding in the indexes needed to support prime keys and foreign key relationships. For your reading pleasure: I don't know who the currently fashionable database design gurus are, but finding and reading stuff by Chris Date, especially "An Introduction to Database Systems" volume 1, would be a good start. -- martin@ | Martin Gregorie gregorie. | org | Zappa fan & glider pilot --- * Synchronet * The Whitehouse BBS --- whitehouse.hulds.com --- check it out free usenet! --- Synchronet 3.15a-Win32 NewsLink 1.92 Time Warp of the Future BBS - telnet://time.synchro.net:24