database standardization

mashnote

i'm about to set up a new database for an online shop.
but my question is...how far can/should you go with this.

let's say i have a 1000 products. some products are from the same production company. so i have 100 companies in total whos name reoccur quite some times because they made a lot of items in the database

so i should in stead of writing the name of the company in the item table, put an integer as a foreign key to a table with the full details of the company.

but out of 100 companies...i can't tell which company had which integer linked to it.
of course...write it down, use a spreadsheet or something.

but is this the most convenient way to do that ?

sorry about the noobish question. but i want to do this as good as possible with expansion in mind.

thanx!

HP400

The foreign key way is the right way to do it. Then use Joins to pull the company name into a query result.

mashnote

"If you are the only user of this phpMyAdmin installation, you can use your current database to store those special tables; in this case, just put your current database name in $cfg['Servers'][$i]['pmadb']"

so the phpmyadmin version my host has, doesn't support foreign keys by default.
so i have to do the thing i pasted above. but where can i find that file ?

laserlight

so the phpmyadmin version my host has, doesn't support foreign keys by default.

Then dont use phpmyadmin, or ignore its limitations. It is only a tool to help you manage your mysql databases.

I suggest that you read the PHP Builder article on Database Normalization and Design Techniques.

mashnote

laserlight wrote:
Then dont use phpmyadmin, or ignore its limitations. It is only a tool to help you manage your mysql databases.

I suggest that you read the PHP Builder article on Database Normalization and Design Techniques.

yeah, i just made my own create tables pages.....a lot easier in a way.
thanx for the suggestion though 😉