I am trying to limit the about of tables in my database because I hear that's good (I am a novice web developer). I want to have the user input a list into the database. So they input a title, overall comment, and then start making the list. I can't figure out how to do this without making a new table for each list. Because, say one user wants a list with 44 values and another user wants a list of 10 values. I can't think of how to do this without making a new table for each list. I would really appreciate any help/insight you can give to me.
Basically, you want to make a table for the user lists, where each row in the table refers to one user's lists, and another table for the user list values, where each row in the table has a column for a reference to the list it belongs to, and a column for the value the user input.
Your Table Could Be:
UserID, int
ListID, int (Primary Key-Unique Identifier)
Title, VarChar(250)
Comment, VarChar(MAX)
Example Content:
1 | 1 | The Title | My Comment
1 | 2 | The Other Title | My other comment
2 | 3 | First Comment | Second Person, first comment
Eacher User just gets their list from a query:
Select ListID, Titel, Comment FROM the_Table
where UserID = #UserID
You can get away with a single table of lines for all the lists, say for example simply
CREATE TABLE ListLines (
listID INTEGER,
lineNo INTEGER,
line TEXT,
PRIMARY KEY (listID, lineNo),
FOREIGN KEY (listID) REFERENCES Lists
);
with the table of lists becoming:
CREATE TABLE Lists (
listID INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
userID INTEGER,
title TEXT,
comment TEXT,
FOREIGN KEY (userID) REFERENCES Users
);
assuming you have a Users table with primary key userID INTEGER with per-user information (name, etc, etc).
So to get all the lines of a list given its ID you just
SELECT line FROM ListLines
WHERE listID=:whateverid
ORDER BY lineNo;
or you could UNION that with e.g. the title:
SELECT title AS line FROM Lists
WHERE listID=:whateverid
UNION ALL
SELECT line FROM ListLines
WHERE listID=:whateverid
ORDER BY lineNo;
and so on. This flexible and efficient arrangement is the relational way of doing things...
Related
I have a table that I want to break into 2 tables. I want to pull some data out of table A, put it into a new table B, and then point each record in A to the corresponding record in the new table.
It's easy enough to populate the new table with an INSERT INTO B blah blah SELECT blah blah FROM A. But the catch is, when I create the new records in B, I want to write the ID of the B record back into A.
I've thought of two ways to do this:
Create a cursor, loop through A a record at a time, create the record in B and post the new ID back to A.
Create a temporary table with the extracted data, an ID for the new record, and the ID of A. Then use this temporary table to populate B and also to post the ID back to A.
Both methods seem cumbersome with a lot of copying all the data back and forth. Is there a clean, simple way to do this or should I just knuckle down and do it the hard way?
Oh, I'm using Microsoft SQL Server, if your answer depends on non-standard features of SQL.
Someone asks for an example. Yes, I should have included something concrete to make it clear. The real example is a bunch of data, but let me give a simplified example of what I mean.
Let's say I have a Customer table with customer_id, name, and city. I want to break city out into a separate table.
So for example:
Customer
ID Name City
17 Al Detroit
22 Betty Baltimore
39 Charles Cleveland
I want to convert this to:
Customer
ID Name City_ID
17 Al 1
22 Betty 2
39 Charles 3
City
ID Name
1 Detroit
2 Baltimore
3 Cleveland
The exact ID values don't matter.
So easy enough to create the City table and the reference ...
create table city (id int identity primary key, name varchar(50))
alter table customer add city_id int references city
And then populate the city table ...
insert into city (name)
select city from customer
The trick is how to get those city IDs back into the Customer table.
(And yes, in this simplified example, the effort may appear pointless. In real life we have many tables with addresses and I want to pull all those fields out of all the other tables and put them into a single address table, so we can standardize the declarations and processing of addresses.)
(Note: I haven't tested the sample code above. Excuse me if there's a typo or something in there.)
You can use the output clause to capture your new ID values.
without any sample data or examples of what you are doing the following is just a guide.
Create a #table to hold the new ID values, then insert the newly inserted Id identity values along with a correlating value from the inserted virtual table. You can then update the original table with the new IDs by joining on this correlating value.
create table #NewIds (TableBId int, TableAId int)
insert into TableB (column list)
output inserted.Id, inserted.TableAId into #NewIds
select column list
from TableA
update a
set a.TableBId=Id
from #NewIds n join TableA a on a.Id=n.TableAId
I'm currently designing my tables. i have three types of user which is, pyd, ppp and ppk. Which is better? inserting data in one row or in multiple row?
which is better?
or
or any suggestion? thanks
I would go for 3 tables:
user_type
typeID | typeDescription
Main_table
id_main_table | id_user | id_type
table_bhg_i
id_bhg_i | id_main_table | data1 | data2 | data3
Although I see you are inserting IDs for each user , I don't quite understand how are are you going to differentiate between the users , had I designed this DB , I would have gone for tables like
tableName: UserTypes
this table would contain two field first would be ID and second would be type of user
like
UsertypeID | UserType
the UsertypeID is a primary key and can be auto increment , while UserType would be your users pyd ,ppk or so on . Designing in this way would give you flexibility of adding data later on in the table without changing the schema of the table ,
the next you can edit a table for generating multiple users of a particular type, this table would refer the userID of the previous table , this will help you adding new user easily and would remove redundancy
tableName:Users
this table would again contain two fields, the first field would be the id call and the secind field would be the usertypeId try
UserId |UserName | UserTypeID
the next thing you can do is make a table to insert the data , let the table be called DataTable
tableName: DataTable
this table will contain the data of the users and this will reference then easily
DataTabID | DataFields(can be any in number) | UserID(refrences Users table)
these tables would be more than sufficient .If doubts as me in chatbox
I have a table like this, that contains items that are added to the database.
Catalog table example
id | element | catalog
0 | mazda | car
1 | penguin | animal
2 | zebra | animal
etc....
And then I have a table where the user selects items from that table, and I keep a reference of what has been selected like this
User table example
id | name | age | itemsSelected
0 | john | 18 | 2;3;7;9
So what I am trying to say, is that I keep a reference to what the user has selected as a string if ID's, but I think this seems a tad troublesome
Because when I do a query to get information about a user, all I get is the string of 2;3;7;9, when what I really want is an array of the items corresponing to those ID's
Right now I get the ID's and I have to split the string, and then run another query to find the elements the ID's correspond to
Is there any easier ways to do this, if my question is understandable?
Yes, there is a way to do this. You create a third table which contains a map of A/B. It's called a Multiple to Multiple foreign-key relationship.
You have your Catalogue table (int, varchar(MAX), varchar(MAX)) or similar.
You have your User table (int, varchar(MAX), varchar(MAX), varchar(MAX)) or similar, essentially, remove the last column and then create another table:
You create a UserCatalogue table: (int UserId, int CatalogueId) with a Primary Key on both columns. Then the UserId column gets a Foreign-Key to User.Id, and the CatalogueId table gets a Foreign-Key to Catalogue.Id. This preserves the relationship and eases queries. It also means that if Catalogue.Id number 22 does not exist, you cannot accidentally insert it as a relation between the two. This is called referential-integrity. The SQL Server mandates that if you say, "This column must have a reference to this other table" then the SQL Server will mandate that relationship.
After you create this, for each itemsSelected you add an entry: I.e.
UserId | CatalogueId
0 | 2
0 | 3
0 | 7
0 | 9
This also alows you to use JOINs on the tables for faster queries.
Additionally, and unrelated to the question, you can also optimize the Catalogue table you have a bit, and create another table for CatalogueGroup, which contains your last column there (catalog: car, animal) which is referenced via a Foreign-Key Relationship in the current Catalogue table definition you have. This will also save storage space and speed up SQL Server work, as it no longer has to read a string column if you only want the element value.
I have Five Tables as Below
1.tblFruits
2.tblGroceries
3.tblVegetables
4.tblPlants
5.tblDescriptions
All the tables except 5th one tblDescriptions will have ids as one column and as primary key and Items as Second Column.
The column in table 1 to table 4 are similar and as follows
ids item_name
Now i want to store description of the items of the four table in the fifth table as below
Desc_Id Description Ids
Now the problem is since i am storing the ids to identify the description of the items in the other four table i might get similar ids when i put ids of four table together.
Let me know the table design for the above requirement
tblDescription
=====================
id | pk_id | description | type
id : auto_generated id of tblDescription
pk_id : foreign key to linked to the tblFruits,tblGroceries.. table
description : the description
type : value either be fruits, groceries,vegetables,plants .To identify the table.
SQL to extract description would be as below:
Select f.item_name, d.description from tblDescription d
inner join tblFruits f on d.pk_id=f.id and d.type='fruits'
inner join tblGroceries g on d.pk_id=g.id and d.type='groceries'
Use Polymorphic Association. As foreign key of your 5th table with description use two columns object_id and object_model.
Example of table content:
Desc_Id Description Object_ID Object_Model
1 'dsferer' 12 `Fruit`
2 `desc2 12 `Vegetable`
2 `descfdfd2 19 `Vegetable`
Remember to add unique index on both columns for performance reasons.
Here you have some article explaining this in PHP
As your tables are similar, the best practice is to combine all of your tables and even description and define row type using a type column.
id name description type
[Fruits, Groceries, Vegetables, Plants]
It's easier to understand and maintain.
But if your tables are different you have two option:
1- use a super table for your types which produce unique IDs which I suggest.
2- use a type row in your description field and define it as primary key beside ID in that table.
Ok, I am total newbie so bear with me.
Trying to implement an ordering system and wish
to save the orders to the database with LINQ to Entities. I can do it now
but for each new object that is saved to the orders table
a new row is inserted, with new OrderNo for each ProductID where as I obviously
should be able to have multiple ProductID's for each OrderNo.
Everything is very simplified as I am just testing.
I have an orders table with columns as such:
OrderNo PK, Identity specification
Line int PL
ProductID int
and a products table
ProductID int PK
An order entity object is instantiated and its properties
are populated with data from a form which is posted to an action method.
It is then saved to the orders table with the following code:
(DropDownList1Value) has value of an existing ProductID and "DropDownList1Value" is the id of the DropDownList element in view.
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult OrderProcessor()
{
int productId = int.Parse(Request.Form["DropDownList1Value"]);
var order = new Order();
order.ProductID = productId;
context.Orders.AddObject(order);
context.SaveChanges();
return View(order);
}
So the records that are inserted look as such:
Sorry, couldn't line up the values under their respective column name in this editor.
OrderNo Line ProductID
101 0 3
102 0 5
103 0 2
Where as I want something like this:
OrderNo Line ProductID
101 1 3
101 2 5
101 3 2
102 1 2
So I wish to know how can I modify the orders table so it
can have multiple records with same "OrderNo" and just increment for "Line" for diff ProductID's and how do I go about inserting such records with LinQ to Entities where
I will obviously have many ProductId from multiple DropDowLists
and they will all be for the one order.
Currently I have foreign key dependency on ProductID in Products table,
so no record in the Orders table can have ProductID which does not exists in the Products table.
I need to make the table depend on the whole key that is OrderNo + Line
and have the "Line" auto increment.
Or is there a much better way of implementing of what I am after here?
Thanks.
Let me first explain briefly what I understood.
There is an invoice, which contains several products for one order number.
and this is how your invoice looks like:
Order Number: 101
------------------
Sl. Products
1 3
2 5
3 2
Before answering I want to point out that you are taking OrderId from a form (That is from client side) This is a wrong and INSECURE approach. Let the order id be AutoGenerated by database.
I would suggest to tweak your database design a little.
Here is a solution that will work.
Note: I am consedering your database support Auto-Increment, for MS SQL replace it with IDENTITY, for Oracle you need to create a sequence.
Product (
id INT PK AUTO-INCREMENT
);
Order (
id INT PK AUTO-INCREMENT
user-id INT FK # user who purchased
### and other common details Like date of purchase etc.
);
Order-Detail (
id INT PK AUTO-INCREMENT
order-id INT FK # Common order id
pdt-id INT FK # product which was purchased.
);
When you make a purchase:
1. Insert a row in order table
2. Fetch the last inserted id
3. Insert order-id from last step and products which are purchased in Order-Detail table,
Fetch all the orders made by a user:
1. Read from order table.
Fetch all products purchased for an order:
1. Fetch details from Order-Detail
Note: You will get List of products purchased, Use Order-detail.id as "Line"
EDIT:
Thanx to HLGEM's comment
If you think price of a product may change then instead of updating the price add a new row to the table (and flag the old table so that it wont be visible, you can also have a column in new table pointing to old table), thus old purchase will point to old product and new orders will point to updated (new) row.
There is one more approach this problem:
store the current cost of product in order-detail table.
If you are facing difficulty understanding above solution here is another and simpler one.
In Order table, Make a composite primary key including OrderNo and Line.
Whenever inserting into database you will need to generate line number in your code, which you can do by runnign a loop over array of propduct being purchased.
I think it would be better to split your current Order table into two separate tables:
Order table
(PK, Identity specification) OrderId
Perhaps other fields like Invoice address, Delivery address, etc.
OrderLine table
(PK, Identity specification) OrderLineId
(FK to Order table) OrderId
(FK to Product table) ProductId
For both tables you have an Entity in your class model: class Order and class OrderLine and a one-to-many relationship between them, so Order has a collection of OrderLines.
Creating an order with all order lines would then look like this:
var order = new Order();
foreach (var item in collection)
{
var orderLine = new OrderLine()
// Get productId from your DropDownLists
orderLine.ProductId = productId;
order.OrderLines.Add(orderLine);
}
context.Orders.AddObject(order);
context.SaveChanges();
Edit
The MVC MusicStore Tutorial might also help for the first steps to create an order processing system with ASP.NET MVC and Entity Framework. It contains classes for orders and order details (among others) and explains their relationships.