Re: Storing multiple items in one MySQL field?

Yeah, I was being somewhat facetious about the colors of a shirt. :) I agree on the items and attributes drill-down before implementation though. There will be more than T-Shirts. Watches, book-covers, etc, etc. So I need to find a general logic to cover the items and attributes of each item? And this will make it scalable? Best, On Jan 11, 2012, at 4:39 PM, tamouse mailing lists wrote:

I am thinking of limiting the colors to 10 for now (after all there are only so many ways to die a shirt. =)

Oh, please. There are lots more than 10 dyes in the world. Take a look at a women's clothing catalog sometime or other... Just look at this one t-shirt item alone: http://store.americanapparel.net/2102.html Individual item characteristics are going to be a lot different than categories. You'll need expandable attributes for all kinds of things. Colour is the obvious one here. Also: Size: not everything comes in S, M, L, or is measured in that way. If this is for an apparel store that sells a variety of different items, you'll need to solve this generally across a whole lot of different types of clothing. I'd really suggest you do a deep analysis of the different types of items that are going to be sold, the attributes of each one, and figure out how to best represent that breadth and depth.

Karl DeSaulniers Design Drumm http://designdrumm.com