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| bio | website | |
|---|---|---|
| location | Germany | |
| age | 29 | |
| visits | member for | 5 months |
| seen | Mar 26 at 18:51 | |
| stats | profile views | 9 |
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Mar 26 |
accepted | Should lookup tables enumerating strings have an integer primary key? |
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Mar 25 |
awarded | Commentator |
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Mar 25 |
comment |
Should lookup tables enumerating strings have an integer primary key? @gbn Actually, I haven't yet decided which version to use. I asked this question exactly because I wanted to hear all drawbacks before committing myself to an option. I have seen examples of using meaningful strings as IDs in textbooks and lecture notes which do teach normalization too, so I was just surprised to hear that it is considered non-normalized, that's why I tried to get more info from the people who said this. |
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Mar 25 |
comment |
Should lookup tables enumerating strings have an integer primary key? Thank you for this example. While I had thought of the possiblity that I would have to change the database design (such as multiple classification), all cases I came up with would have worked with reusing strings as well as with reusing integers, or would have required such a radical redesign that all keys would have had to be changed anyway. Translation looks like an example where reusing integers would work well, while reusing string names, while still technically possible, would lead to a very confusing design. |
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Mar 25 |
revised |
Should lookup tables enumerating strings have an integer primary key? added 1 characters in body |
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Mar 25 |
comment |
Should lookup tables enumerating strings have an integer primary key? @Telastyn I think the "Choose the rows to use" sentence was just a bad formulation on my part. I fully intend to use foreign key constraints. My point was that the users will not be able to add new rows to the LiteraryTypeTable from anywhere in the interface, or to type in free text for the Type field of the LiteraryWork table, so that I won't end up with a "Fairytale" entry as well as a "Fairy tale" entry. |
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Mar 25 |
comment |
Should lookup tables enumerating strings have an integer primary key? @MichaelT I read it. To put it in terms of this article, what I am saying is, "the type of a Literary Work is a candidate key in its own right, just like a SSN in the example, so if I use it instead of an artificially added autoincrementing column, normalization is not broken". I also clarified my question to say what I am not trying to do. If there is still a mistake in my thinking, could you please explain it, in terms of the article you linked, exactly what the mistake is? Which normal form am I hurting, and why? I am not yet sure if I really made a mistake, or if you misunderstood my q. |
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Mar 25 |
revised |
Should lookup tables enumerating strings have an integer primary key? Added example about which normalization rule I am not hurting |
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Mar 25 |
revised |
Should lookup tables enumerating strings have an integer primary key? added that the question concerns exclusively lookup tables, not entity tables. |
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Mar 25 |
comment |
Should lookup tables enumerating strings have an integer primary key? I cannot see how a data modification anomaly risk is created. As long as I am keeping the second table and using a relationship to it, I can have the type 'Novel' in my system even if I don't have a single record of a novel, so no insertion or deletion anomaly. Also, there is no other information associated with a LiteraryWorkType beside its name, so there cannot be an update anomaly. Could you please give an example of an anomaly which would occur in the second design? |
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Mar 25 |
asked | Should lookup tables enumerating strings have an integer primary key? |
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Jan 21 |
awarded | Teacher |
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Jan 21 |
comment |
How to implement a hybrid role-based access control model? I would like to know why the question was downvoted, please. |
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Jan 21 |
comment |
How to implement a hybrid role-based access control model? +1 for the good description of the standard cases. But I am aware of them, and this is not what I need. My users require the flexibility micromanagement would give them, but insist that my software does the micromanagement for them in all the default cases. What I am wondering is how to implement the "handling of default cases" part - by accepting extra complexity in my .NET code, or my accepting extra complexity in my DB structure and SQL queries. |
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Jan 17 |
asked | How to implement a hybrid role-based access control model? |
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Jan 17 |
awarded | Scholar |
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Jan 17 |
accepted | Were there major changes in testing practices in ASP .NET between 3.5 and 4.5? |
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Jan 15 |
awarded | Supporter |
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Jan 12 |
awarded | Student |
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Jan 10 |
awarded | Citizen Patrol |
