Re: Split Fields into 2 Tables or All in One?

Thanks for the link, Leo. That page talks about Views which MySQL doesn't have, so, it's kind of moot for me. But, I get the message that multiple tables are better than one big table if it means lots of empty fields. It still makes things difficult programming-wise, though. I discovered that a big drawback to having lots of smaller tables is updating them when the user changes information. It's a nightmare!! I haven't figure out how to deal with someone who leaves all the fields for a specific table of data empty. I don't want to create an entry in the data table if they left all the fields blank, but, this requires that I test every single field before determining whether to do write them to the DB, which seems really inefficient. Anyone have any tips or links to tips about update multiple tables based on data received from a form? Thanks! Monty > From: ldivinag@csuhayward.edu (Leo G. Divinagracia III) > Newsgroups: php.db > Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2002 18:01:36 -0700 > To: Monty <monty3@hotmail.com> > Cc: php-db@lists.php.net > Subject: Re: [PHP-DB] Split Fields into 2 Tables or All in One? > > boy, if i only had penny for every time i see this problem... :) > > really, all you need to do is NORMALIZE your tables. plain and simple. and > this is a task in itself. with that, try this: > > http://www.eskimo.com/~ericj/comp/sql2.htm >