Timeline for Should we add extra 5 columns or build a separate table?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
5 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 16, 2012 at 3:24 | comment | added | newbie14 | @alex most of it have values such the latitude,longitude,speed,date time,device type,device serial etc. So most of it will be use. The remaining 7 fields actually foreign keys to other tables itself. So what is your opinion am I ok on the right track or need some modifications. | |
| Jun 15, 2012 at 15:47 | comment | added | a1ex07 | Clarification : by "0 value " I meant no business value... | |
| Jun 15, 2012 at 15:45 | comment | added | a1ex07 | @newbie14 : If you deal with dynamic number of attributes, maybe entity-attribute-value pattern will match your needs better. Normalization itself , in my opinion, doesn't have to be an ultimate goal, but it's always helpful to try normalizing model first, and if it requires too many efforts, give up a bit of normalization in favor of clearness and consistency. Another point which is worth attention, is whether your application really cares about all 26 attributes? If some of them have zero value, there is absolutely no need in storing them in separate columns. BLOB/TEXT/XML can be used | |
| Jun 15, 2012 at 13:52 | comment | added | newbie14 | @alex actually this table receives data from gps devices which are comma delimited. The number of data when broke down is 26 altogether and the rest of the 7 more fields are id which are foreign key of different tables and not all are filled depends on the event message represented by the string. So that is why we having problem with normalisation. So is it ok not to normalize in this case? | |
| Jun 14, 2012 at 17:07 | history | answered | a1ex07 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |