unable to decide about table structure database

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unable to decide about table structure database

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sampath
Starting Member

1 Post

Posted - 2012-06-10 : 23:03:30

Hi

I am preparing the database of mall's which tells the number of mall's in a city in different locations.
For example
**Mall** **Places**
Inorbit gachibowli, mehdipatnam, hitech-city,a,b,c,d,e,f
GVK Mall gachibowli, secunderabad, machlipatnam,x,yx,z,i

This way I want to display the number of places the mall is present in a state when user selects a mall. But the number of places in which a mall is present are numerous and the number of places one mall is present will vary by huge number.

So I want to know can this be done without creating huge number of columns to accommodate places in which a mall exist.

I also want to display the mall's in a location when user selects a particular please.

I hope the question is understandable.

sampath

vinu.vijayan
Posting Yak Master

227 Posts

Posted - 2012-06-11 : 03:22:41

quote:

**Mall** **Places**
Inorbit gachibowli, mehdipatnam, hitech-city,a,b,c,d,e,f
GVK Mall gachibowli, secunderabad, machlipatnam,x,yx,z,i

Storing Data as Comma Delimited String is not a good practice.

This is a better alternative to your approach:

quote:

**Mall** **Places**
Inorbit gachibowli
Inorbit mehdipatnam
Inorbit hitech-city
Inorbit a
Inorbit b
Inorbit c
Inorbit d
Inorbit e
Inorbit f

What would be best is for you to have a master table for Places which has PlaceId as Primary Key and PlaceName as another field.

Then you can have a table Malls where you can have MallId as Primary Key, PlaceId as Foreign Key which references the Places Master Table and MallName as another Field.

This should be the ideal Structure. Comma Delimited Strings should always be avoided as a medium of Storing data in Databases.

Hope that helps.

N 28° 33' 11.93148"
E 77° 14' 33.66384"

waterduck
Aged Yak Warrior

982 Posts

Posted - 2012-06-11 : 04:37:21

use garmin or papago =P

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