Re: Select from 24 tables

> This isn't always desirable, or even possible. I once designed a > database to hold characteristics for a series of 70 different tests. > There were about 50 different characteristics used in various > combinations for each test. Each characteristic could be one of many > values. So the characteristics tables all looked like this: > > id, name, value > > And the test tables looked like this: > > id, name, value In my experience, it's usually a safe assumption that if you have a bunch of tables all structured identically and used in similar ways, you should probably merge them all into a single table with an extra column that corresponds to whatever differentiating characteristic used to distinguish your original tables. I.e., go with John Holmes' suggestion before you're really up the creek. --------------------------------------------------------------------- michal migurski- contact info and pgp key: sf/ca http://mike.teczno.com/contact.html