archive design

[neil]

I've a question about archiving.

Let's say there was this setup.

MEMBER         SOFTWARE      CATEGORY
mid (PK)       sid (PK)      cid (PK)
username       title         name
password       description
rank           version
               [b]mid[/b]
               [b]cid[/b]
               location
               filename

The member wants to update an existing version for one of the software applications. Now obviously the actual file will be changed, possibly put into an archive directory and renamed respectively.

Although would it be best to add an extra field in the software called archive (ENUM=YES or NO), so when the member clicks update another row is created with the same values as the software being updated, only the archive field is changed to yes and the location would also be changed. Or would having an archive table be more suitable for this task?

Which is better for design, cause I think both would work fine. Hopefully you know what I mean.

Thanks.

[pohopo]

it depends on the size of the software table and how often it is queried. if it is big and queried a lot i would archive rows whenever possible. if it is small you can keep it all together.

[neil]

Hi pohopo, the software table should contain around 100-500 rows, not sure if that is considered big. Probably would be queried a bit as it's the main part of the website.

Are you saying if it is small, use the archive table method. If it is big, use the archive field in software table method?