Tom Worster wrote: > On 5/5/09 4:42 PM, "Richard S. Crawford" <rscrawford@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > >> On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 1:34 PM, PJ <af.gourmet@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> >>> I'm coming up with a bit of a quandry: how to enter and retrieve an >>> identical book title with different authors. >>> It is rather unbelievable what contortions one finds as authors :-( >>> like editors, associations and then the unknowns and anon y mouses. >>> I suppose one has to get really creative... >>> > > don't forget to consider the handling of anthologies :-) > Well, that usually comes under editors and I have a couple of options where to enter that info: sub_title or description fields and I can always add a for author first_name and Various or whatever for last_name :-) > > >>> Anyone for tea? >>> > > yes please, i'd love some. > > > >> What I've done for this sort of project in the past was create >> separate tables for authors, books, and author relationships (e.g., >> author, translator, editor), then linking tables for each of those. >> You seriously want to do some normalization on this task; otherwise, >> you end up with a giant table of books, with multiple rows duplicating >> the title of the book, leading to a huge "books" table, and nobody >> wants that. >> > > i have a db with 10s of millions of artists, disks, songs etc. i've tried it > both ways. and after 5 years working with it i still can't make up my mind > which way i prefer it. i keep finding pros and cons to each approach that > differ depending on what functionality i'm programming. i will never have a > simple answer. > > so i can't help answer the original question other than to say that, for me, > personally, in my opinion, i don't accept the dogma that normal forms are > always good for you. they might be. it depends. it's like being dogmatic > about specific foods without taking the overall diet and lifestyle into > account. despite the simple dogma some may espouse, whether or not a big mac > with fries is bad for you depends on many factors. > > in any case, it's amazing what you can do these days with one huge table and > some well chosen indexes. and it's amazing how mind bending it can get when > joining 5 data tables using 3 join tables. > ain't that the truth ! > good luck, phil. > Thank you guys, for the input. Never thought so many would help so few(little me). ;-) I'm really just a little shorter than BG at 6'5" :-D Actually, I started out and still am with the db normalized. It all works quite well, it's just frustrating to have to go through all the contortions to check things. I started out with just checking the title, then had to add a check to the sub_title, (already have a check for author) but now have to add another to go with the specific book... oh, well... all a part of the learning process. :-) -- Hervé Kempf: "Pour sauver la planète, sortez du capitalisme." ------------------------------------------------------------- Phil Jourdan --- pj@xxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.ptahhotep.com http://www.chiccantine.com/andypantry.php -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
