On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 11:10 AM, Eric Butera <eric.butera@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 11:06 AM, tedd <tedd@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Hi gang: > > > > A related question to my last "Clarity needed" post. > > > > I have a tutor table (showing all the tutors), a course table (showing > all > > the courses), and a course-to-tutor table (showing all the instances of > what > > tutor teaches what course). > > > > Okay, everything works. Whenever I want to find out what courses a > specific > > tutor teaches OR what tutors teach a specific course, I simply search the > > course-to-tutor table and bingo out pops the answer. > > > > Now, how do you handle the situation when a tutor quits or when a course > is > > no longer offered? > > > > If I search the course-to-tutor table for all the tutors who teach a > course > > and find a tutor who is no longer there OR search the course-to-tutor > table > > for all the courses a tutor teaches and find a course that is no longer > > offered, how do you handle the record? > > > > I realize that if either search turns up nothing, I can check for that > > situation and then handle it accordingly. But my question is more > > specifically, in the event of a tutor quilting OR removing a course from > the > > curriculum, what do you do about the course-to-tutor orphaned record? > > > > As I see it, my choices are to a) ignore the orphaned record or b) delete > > the orphaned record. If I ignore the record, then the database grows with > > orphaned records and searches are slowed. If I delete the orphaned > record, > > then the problem is solved, right? > > > > I just want to get a consensus of how you people normally handle it. Do > any > > of you see in danger in deleting an orphaned record? > > > > Cheers, > > > > tedd > > > > -- > > ------- > > http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com > > > > -- > > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php > > > > > > Could add a status flag to the records to indicate if they're active > or not. Or you could use InnoDB and have it cascade delete join > records. Status is nice though in case they come back or to provide > an undelete type functionality. > > -- > http://www.voom.me | EFnet: #voom > > -- > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php > > this gets my vote -- Bastien Cat, the other other white meat
