I've got a table structure I'm not really certain of how to create the best way.
Basically I have two tables, tblSystemItems and tblClientItems. I have a third table that has a column that references an 'Item'. The problem is, this column needs to reference either a system item or a client item - it does not matter which. System items have keys in the 1..2^31 range while client items have keys in the range -1..-2^31, thus there will never be any collisions.
Whenever I query the items, I'm doing it through a view that does a UNION ALL between the contents of the two tables.
Thus, optimally, I'd like to make a foreign key reference the result of the view, since the view will always be the union of the two tables - while still keeping IDs unique. But I can't do this as I can't reference a view.
Now, I can just drop the foreign key, and all is well. However, I'd really like to have some referential checking and cascading delete/set null functionality. Is there any way to do this, besides triggers?
sorry for the late answer, I've been struck with a serious case of weekenditis.
As for utilizing a third table to include PKs from both client and system tables - I don't like that as that just overly complicates synchronization and still requires my app to know of the third table.
Another issue that has arisen is that I have a third table that needs to reference an item - either system or client, it doesn't matter. Having the tables separated basically means I need to have two columns, a ClientItemID and a SystemItemID, each having a constraint for each of their tables with nullability - rather ugly.
I ended up choosing a different solution. The whole issue was with easily synchronizing new system items into the tables without messing with client items, avoiding collisions and so forth.
I ended up creating just a single table, Items. Items has a bit column named "SystemItem" that defines, well, the obvious. In my development / system database, I've got the PK as an int identity(1,1). After the table has been created in the client database, the identity key is changed to (-1,-1). That means client items go in the negative while system items go in the positive.
For synchronizations I basically ignore anything with (SystemItem = 1) while synchronizing the rest using IDENTITY INSERT ON. Thus I'm able to synchronize while completely ignoring client items and avoiding collisions. I'm also able to reference just one "Items" table which covers both client and system items. The only thing to keep in mind is to fix the standard clustered key so it's descending to avoid all kinds of page restructuring when the client inserts new items (client updates vs system updates is like 99%/1%).
You can create a unique id (db generated - sequence, autoinc, etc) for the table that references items, and create two additional columns (tblSystemItemsFK and tblClientItemsFk) where you reference the system items and client items respectively - some databases allows you to have a foreign key that is nullable.
If you're using an ORM you can even easily distinguish client items and system items (this way you don't need to negative identifiers to prevent ID overlap) based on column information only.
With a little more bakcground/context it is probably easier to determine an optimal solution.
You probably need a table say tblItems that simply store all the primary keys of the two tables. Inserting items would require two steps to ensure that when an item is entered into the tblSystemItems table that the PK is entered into the tblItems table.
The third table then has a FK to tblItems. In a way tblItems is a parent of the other two items tables. To query for an Item it would be necessary to create a JOIN between tblItems, tblSystemItems and tblClientItems.
[EDIT-for comment below] If the tblSystemItems and tblClientItems control their own PK then you can still let them. You would probably insert into tblSystemItems first then insert into tblItems. When you implement an inheritance structure using a tool like Hibernate you end up with something like this.
Add a table called Items with a PK ItemiD, And a single column called ItemType = "System" or "Client" then have ClientItems table PK (named ClientItemId) and SystemItems PK (named SystemItemId) both also be FKs to Items.ItemId, (These relationships are zero to one relationships (0-1)
Then in your third table that references an item, just have it's FK constraint reference the itemId in this extra (Items) table...
If you are using stored procedures to implement inserts, just have the stored proc that inserts items insert a new record into the Items table first, and then, using the auto-generated PK value in that table insert the actual data record into either SystemItems or ClientItems (depending on which it is) as part of the same stored proc call, using the auto-generated (identity) value that the system inserted into the Items table ItemId column.
This is called "SubClassing"
I've been puzzling over your table design. I'm not certain that it is right. I realise that the third table may just be providing detail information, but I can't help thinking that the primary key is actually the one in your ITEM table and the FOREIGN keys are the ones in your system and client item tables. You'd then just need to do right outer joins from Item to the system and client item tables, and all constraints would work fine.
I have a similar situation in a database I'm using. I have a "candidate key" on each table that I call EntityID. Then, if there's a table that needs to refer to items in more than one of the other tables, I use EntityID to refer to that row. I do have an Entity table to cross reference everything (so that EntityID is the primary key of the Entity table, and all other EntityID's are FKs), but I don't find myself using the Entity table very often.
Related
I have encountered a problem in my project using PostgreSQL.
Say there are two tables A and B, both A and B have a (unique) field named ID. The ID column of table A is declared as a primary key, while the ID column of table B is declared as a foreign key pointing back to table A.
My problem is that every time we have new data inputted into database, the values in table B tend to be updated prior to the ones in table A (this problem can not be avoided as the project is designed this way). So I have to modify the relationship between A and B.
My goal is to achieve a situation where I can insert data into A and B separately while having the ON DELETE CASCADE clause enabled. What's more, INSERT and DELETE queries may happen at the same time.
Any suggestions?
It sounds like you have a badly designed project, if you can't use deferred constraints. Your basic problem is that you can't guarantee internal consistency of the data because transactions may occur which do not move the data from one consistent state to another.
Here is what I would do to be honest:
Catalog affected keys.
Drop affected key constraints.
Write a periodic job that looks for orphaned rows. Use LEFT JOIN because antijoins do not perform as well in PostgreSQL.
The problem with a third table is it doesn't solve your basic problem, which is that writes are not atomically consistent. And once you sacrifice that a lot of your transactional controls go out the window.
Long term, the project needs to be rewritten.
I want to make sure this is the best way to handle a certain scenario.
Let's say I have three main tables I will keep them generic. They all have primary keys and they all are independent tables referencing nothing.
Table 1
PK
VarChar Data
Table 2
PK
VarChar Data
Table 3
PK
VarChar Data
Here is the scenario, I want a user to be able to comment on specific rows on each of the above tables. But I don't want to create a bunch of comment tables. So as of right now I handled it like so..
There is a comment table that has three foreign key columns each one references the main tables above. There is a constraint that only one of these columns can be valued.
CommentTable
PK
FK to Table1
FK to Table2
FK to Table3
VarChar Comment
FK to Users
My question: is this the best way to handle the situation? Does a generic foreign key exist? Or should I have a separate comments table for each main table.. even though the data structure would be exactly the same? Or would a mapping table for each one be a better solution?
My question: is this the best way to handle the situation?
Multiple FKs with a CHECK that allows only one of them to be non-NULL is a reasonable approach, especially for relatively few tables like in this case.
The alternate approach would be to "inherit" the Table 1, 2 and 3 from a common "parent" table, then connect the comments to the parent.
Look here and here for more info.
Does a generic foreign key exist?
If you mean a FK that can "jump" from table to table, then no.
Assuming all 3 FKs are of the same type1, you could theoretically implement something similar by keeping both foreign key value and referenced table name2 and then enforcing it through a trigger, but declarative constraints should be preferred over that, even at a price of slightly more storage space.
If your DBMS fully supports "virtual" or "calculated" columns, then you could do something similar to above, but instead of having a trigger, generate 3 calculated columns based on FK value and table name. Only one of these calculated columns would be non-NULL at any given time and you could use "normal" FKs for them as you would for the physical columns.
But, all that would make sense when there are many "connectable" tables and your DBMS is not thrifty in storing NULLs. There is very little to gain when there are just 3 of them or even when there are many more than that but your DBMS spends only one bit on each NULL field.
Or should I have a separate comments table for each main table, even though the data structure would be exactly the same?
The "data structure" is not the only thing that matters. If you happen to have different constraints (e.g. a FK that applies to one of them but not the other), that would warrant separate tables even though the columns are the same.
But, I'm guessing this is not the case here.
Or would a mapping table for each one be a better solution?
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "mapping table", but you could do something like this:
Unfortunately, that would allow a single comment to be connected to more than one table (or no table at all), and is in itself a complication over what you already have.
All said and done, your original solution is probably fine.
1 Or you are willing to store it as string and live with conversions, which you should be reluctant to do.
2 In practice, this would not really be a name (as in string) - it would be an integer (or enum if DBMS supports it) with one of the well-known predefined values identifying the table.
Thanks for all the help folks, i was able to formulate a solution with the help of a colleague of mine. Instead of multiple mapping tables i decided to just use one.
This mapping table holds a group of comments, so it has no primary key. And each group row links back to a comment. So you can have multiple of the same group id. one-many-one would be the relationship.
I have a problem that can be summarized as follow:
Assume that I am implementing an employee database. For each person depends on his position, different fields should be filled. So for example if the employee is a software engineer, I have the following columns:
Name
Family
Language
Technology
CanDevelopWeb
And if the employee is a business manager I have the following columns:
Name
Family
FieldOfExpertise
MaximumContractValue
BonusRate
And if the employee is a salesperson then some other columns and so on.
How can I implement this in database schema?
One way that I thought is to have some related tables:
CoreTable:
Name
Family
Type
And if type is one then the employee is a software developer and hence the remaining information should be in table SoftwareDeveloper:
Language
Technology
CanDevelopWeb
For business Managers I have another table with columns:
FieldOfExpertise
MaximumContractValue
BonusRate
The problem with this structure is that I am not sure how to make relationship between tables, as one table has relationship with several tables on one column.
How to enforce relational integrity?
There are a few schools of thought here.
(1) store nullable columns in a single table and only populate the relevant ones (check constraints can enforce integrity here). Some people don't like this because they are afraid of NULLs.
(2) your multi-table design where each type gets its own table. Tougher to enforce with DRI but probably trivial with application or trigger logic.
The only problem with either of those, is as soon as you add a new property (like CanReadUpsideDown), you have to make schema changes to accommodate for that - in (1) you need to add a new column and a new constraint, in (2) you need to add a new table if that represents a new "type" of employee.
(3) EAV, where you have a single table that stores property name and value pairs. You have less control over data integrity here, but you can certainly constraint the property names to certain strings. I wrote about this here:
What is so bad about EAV, anyway?
You are describing one ("class per table") of the 3 possible strategies for implementing the category (aka. inheritance, generalization, subclass) hierarchy.
The correct "propagation" of PK from the parent to child tables is naturally enforced by straightforward foreign keys between them, but ensuring both presence and the exclusivity of the child rows is another matter. It can be done (as noted in the link above), but the added complexity is probably not worth it and I'd generally recommend handling it at the application level.
I would add a field called EmployeeId in the EmployeeTable
I'd get rid of Type
For BusinessManager table and SoftwareDeveloper for example, I'll add EmployeeId
From here, you can then proceed to create Foreign Keys from BusinessManager, SoftwareDeveloper table to Employee
To further expand on your one way with the core table is to create a surrogate key based off an identity column. This will create a unique employee id for each employee (this will help you distinguish between employees with the same name as well).
The foreign keys preserve your referential integrity. You wouldn't necessarily need EmployeeTypeId as someone else mentioned as you could filter on existence in the SoftwareDeveloper or BusinessManagers tables. The column would instead act as a cached data point for easier querying.
You have to fill in the types in the below sample code and rename the foreign keys.
create table EmployeeType(
EmployeeTypeId
, EmployeeTypeName
, constraint PK_EmployeeType primary key (EmployeeTypeId)
)
create table Employees(
EmployeeId int identity(1,1)
, Name
, Family
, EmployeeTypeId
, constraint PK_Employees primary key (EmployeeId)
, constraint FK_blahblah foreign key (EmployeeTypeId) references EmployeeType(EmployeeTypeId)
)
create table SoftwareDeveloper(
EmployeeId
, Language
, Technology
, CanDevelopWeb
, constraint FK_blahblah foreign key (EmployeeId) references Employees(EmployeeId)
)
create table BusinessManagers(
EmployeeId
, FieldOfExpertise
, MaximumContractValue
, BonusRate
, constraint FK_blahblah foreign key (EmployeeId) references Employees(EmployeeId)
)
No existing SQL engine has solutions that make life easy on you in this situation.
Your problem is discussed at fairly large in "Practical Issues in Database Management", in the chapter on "entity subtyping". Commendable reading, not only for this particular chapter.
The proper solution, from a logical design perspective, would be similar to yours, but for the "type" column in the core table. You don't need that, since you can derive the 'type' from which non-core table the employee appears in.
What you need to look at is the business rules, aka data constraints, that will ensure the overall integrity (aka consistency) of the data (of course whether any of these actually apply is something your business users, not me, should tell you) :
Each named employee must have exactly one job, and thus some job detail somewhere. iow : (1) no named employees without any job detail whatsoever and (2) no named employees with >1 job detail.
(3) All job details must be for a named employee.
Of these, (3) is the only one you can implement declaratively if you are using an SQL engine. It's just a regular FK from the non-core tables to the core table.
(1) and (2) could be defined declaratively in standard SQL, using either CREATE ASSERTION or a CHECK CONSTRAINT involving references to other tables than the one the CHECK CONSTRAINT is defined on, but neither of those constructs are supported by any SQL engine I know.
One more thing about why [including] the 'type' column is a rather poor choice to make : it changes how constraint (3) must be formulated. For example, you can no longer say "all business managers must be named employees", but instead you'd have to say "all business managers are named employees whose type is <type here>". Iow, the "regular FK" to your core table has now become a reference to a VIEW on your core table, something you might want to declare as, say,
CREATE TABLE BUSMANS ... REFERENCES (SELECT ... FROM CORE WHERE TYPE='BM');
or
CREATE VIEW BM AS (SELECT ... FROM CORE WHERE TYPE='BM');
CREATE TABLE BUSMANS ... REFERENCES BM;
Once again something SQL doesn't allow you to do.
You can use all fields in the same table, but you'll need an extra table named Employee_Type (for example) and here you have to put Developer, Business Manager, ... of course with an unique ID. So your relation will be employee_type_id in Employee table.
Using PHP or ASP you can control what field you want to show depending the employee_type_id (or text) in a drop-down menu.
You are on the right track. You can set up PK/FK relationships from the general person table to each of the specialized tables. You should add a personID to all the tables to use for the relationship as you do not want to set up a relationship on name because it cannot be a PK as it is not unique. Also names change, they are a very poor choice for an FK relationship as a name change could cause many records to need to change. It is important to use separate tables rather than one because some of those things are in a one to many relationship. A Developer for instnce may have many differnt technologies and that sort of thing should NEVER be stored in a comma delimted list.
You could also set up trigger to enforce that records can only be added to a specialty table if the main record has a particular personType. However, be wary of doing this as you wil have peopl who change roles over time. Do you want to lose the history of wha the person knew when he was a developer when he gets promoted to a manager. Then if he decides to step back down to development (A frequent occurance) you would have to recreate his old record.
I have to load the data shown in the below image into my database.
For a particular row, either field PartID would be NULL OR field GroupID will be NULL, and the other available columns refers to the NON-NULL entity. I have following three options:
To use one database table, which will have one unified column say ID, which will have PartID and GroupID data. But, in this case I won't be able to apply foreign key constraint, as this column will be containing both entities' data.
To use one database table, which will have columns for both PartID and GroupID, which will contain the respective data. For each row, one of them will be NULL, But in this case I will be able to apply foreign key constraint.
To use two database tables, which will have similar structure, the only difference will be the column PartID and GroupID. In this case I will be able to apply foreign key constraint.
One thing to note here is that, the table(s) will be used in import processes to import about 30000 rows in one go and will also be heavily used in data retrieve operations. Also, the other columns will be used as pivot columns.
Can someone please suggest what should be best approach to achieve this?
I would use option 2 and add a constraint that only one can be non-null and the other must be null (just to be safe). I would not use option 1 because of the lack of a FK and the possibility of linking to the wrong table when not obeying the type identifier in the join.
There is a 4th option, which is to normalize them as "items" with another (surrogate) key and two link tables which link items to either parts or groups. This eliminates NULLs. There are further problems with that approach (items might be in both again or neither without any simple constraint), so unless that is necessary for other reasons, I wouldn't generally go down that path.
Option 3 could be fine - it really depends if these rows are a relation - i.e. data associated with a primary key. That's one huge problem I see with the data presented, the lack of a candidate key - I think you need to address that first.
IMO option 2 is the best - it's not perfectly normalized but will be the easiest to work with. 30K rows is not a lot of rows to import.
I would modify the table so it has one ID column and then add an IDType that is either "G" for Group or "P" for Part.
I need help figuring out a workflow and I'm not sure how to go about it... Let's say I'm transforming (ETL?) data from Table A to Table B. Table A has a composite primary key A.a+A.b+A.c, while Table B has just an automatically populated identity column. How can I map the composite keys from A back to the identities created when inserting into B?
Preferably I would like to not have any columns in table B related to A's composite key because there are many other tables that need to undergo the same operation but don't have the same composite key structure.
If I understand you correctly, you can't relate records from table B back to the records of table A after the transformation unless you somehow capture a mapping between A's composite key and B's identifier during the transformation.
You could add a column to A and pre-compute the identifiers to be used when inserting into B. Then you would have a mapping. This could also be done using a separate mapping table, if you don't want to add a column to A.
If you don't want to override the default assignment of identifiers, then you will have to capture them during the load. Oracle provides the returning clause for insert in PL/SQL for this purpose. I'm not sure about SQL Server. It may also be possible to accomplish this by using a trigger on B to insert into a separate mapping table or update a column in A. Though that's likely to slow down your load considerably.
If nothing else, you could create additional columns in B to hold the keys of A during the load, query out the mappings into a separate table afterwards, and then drop the extra columns.
I hope that helps.
Ask yourself exactly what you need the original keys for. The answer may vary depending on the source system. This may lead you to maintain a "source system" column and a "original source keys" column. The latter may need to be a comma-delimited list of the original keys.
Or, you may find that you never actually need to map back, so don't need to keep anything.