Re: Child tables in MySQL

> How about creating a separate table for each user and a column in the > main table pointing to these user preference tables I missed the first part of this thread, so forgive me if I'm missing something, but that seems like a very bad idea. What if 10,000 people sign up (for whatever this service is)? Do you really want 10,000 tables in your database? Is it not possible to have a single table for users (one row per user) with preferences in that same table (perhaps encoded somehow to save space)? Or a table for users, one for the different preference options, and third to join them? - Darryl ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Darryl Friesen, B.Sc., Programmer/Analyst Darryl.Friesen@usask.ca Education & Research Technology Services, http://gollum.usask.ca/ Department of Computing Services, University of Saskatchewan ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes"