> OK Edward, but presumably you are building your menus by select statements, > thus you wouldn't have all items from a table intermixed. Agreed, but the issue here is the quantity of specials. This particular client has nearly a dozen specials updated daily, all of which then need to be broken down into lunch, dinner, and dessert subcategories. Thinking about it further, I could add a category "special" to my categories table and include a date column in the "food" table. This resolves everything but the sub-specials issue, but all that's required there is a bit of further manipulation to the setup. Thanks, I think I've learned something. :) Edward Dudlik Becoming Digital www.becomingdigital.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Miles Thompson" <milesthompson@ns.sympatico.ca> To: "Becoming Digital" <subs@becomingdigital.com>; "PHP-DB" <php-db@lists.php.net> Sent: Wednesday, 14 May, 2003 08:58 Subject: Re: Database Design Advice OK Edward, but presumably you are building your menus by select statements, thus you wouldn't have all items from a table intermixed. Don't confuse display with data - everything, whether it be drink, entree, appetizer or dessert is a "menu_item". Fetch menu_items for display (or select lists) according to different criteria. Hope this clarifies it - Miles At 10:24 PM 5/13/2003 -0400, Becoming Digital wrote: > > One table, with a field for categories, and if necessary, a flag to > > identify a particular item as a special. > >Ordinarily, I would go this route, but the specials are not normal menu items >and as such should not otherwise be displayed. Given that the specials are to >be updated daily as well, I thought it best to devote a table to them. > > > I'd bet you could even include drinks in the "foods" table. > >Another aspect I'd considered. However, the drink menu is extensive and there >is a section of the site devoted to the restaurant's bar, so again, I thought >another table was warranted. > >Your further comments are welcome. > >Edward Dudlik >Becoming Digital >www.becomingdigital.com > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Miles Thompson" <milesthompson@ns.sympatico.ca> >To: "Becoming Digital" <subs@becomingdigital.com>; "PHP-DB" ><php-db@lists.php.net> >Sent: Tuesday, 13 May, 2003 14:07 >Subject: Re: Database Design Advice > > > >One table, with a field for categories, and if necessary, a flag to >identify a particular item as a special. >I'd bet you could even include drinks in the "foods" table. > >This isn't just a question of database design, but think how much the code >is simplified. > >Cheers - Miles > >At 01:40 PM 5/13/2003 -0400, Becoming Digital wrote: > >I realize that this is better suited for the MySQL list but I've been > >unable to > >post there for no apparent reason. My emails to the list owner have gone > >unanswered as well, so I appreciate your tolerance with my posting here > >for the > >time being. > > > >I'm setting up a database for a new project and I keep wavering on one > >aspect of > >the design. The end result is to be a searchable menu for a restaurant's > >website and I cannot decide if it is best to simply use one table for > all menu > >items (food) or use tables for each category (pasta, appetizers, etc). I > >currently > >have a table listing said categories (categories) but I simply can't decide > >which > >is better for this application. Thank you all for your advice. > > > >Below is some info from MySQL regaring the current design of the DB. > > > >SHOW TABLES; > >+---------------+ > >| Tables_in_tga | > >+---------------+ > >| categories | > >| drinks | > >| food | > >| specials | > >+---------------+ > > > >DESCRIBE categories; > >+-----------+---------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+ > >| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra | > >+-----------+---------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+ > >| cat_id | tinyint(3) unsigned | | PRI | NULL | auto_increment | > >| cat_name | char(100) | | UNI | | | > >+-----------+---------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+ > > > >DESCRIBE food; > >+------------+---------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+ > >| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra | > >+------------+---------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+ > >| item_id | tinyint(3) unsigned | | PRI | NULL | auto_increment | > >| cat_id | tinyint(3) unsigned | | | 0 | | > >| item_name | char(50) | | | | | > >| item_desc | char(255) | | | | | > >| item_price | float(5,2) | | | 0.00 | | > >+------------+---------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+ > > > >Thanks again. > > > >Edward Dudlik > >Becoming Digital > >www.becomingdigital.com > > > > > > > > > > > >-- > >PHP Database Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > >To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php > > >-- >PHP Database Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) >To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- PHP Database Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
