Re: Delete row in a lookup table

On Sat, August 18, 2007 6:31 pm, nitrox . wrote: > Is it not considered good practice to have a primary key on a lookup > table for a database? > I have 3 tables setup, games, memberleagues and members. The > memberleagues table holds the id of the games table and members table. > The problem I have is that Im not sure how to delete a row from the > memberleagues table without a primary key. If its not considered bad > practice I could add a primary key to the memberleagues table and be > done. Anybody have any tutorials on how to write the php for this? You can add the primary key, no problem. However, it might be kind of silly... For a lookup table, you probably have: member_id | game_id ------------------------ 1 | 1 1 | 3 1 | 17 2 | 1 2 | 5 . . . USUALLY you can just have the unique key be the composite key of member_id, game_id and you just delete "where member_id = $m and game_id = $g" The data itself is the key, so to speak, because there can only be one of each member/game combo, and it's unique all by itself. Using an extra field for a key is only a "problem" if you have a zillion members/games to the point where the "extra" space matters on your hard drive. In this day and age, you'd have to have a LOT of members and games for an INT or even BIGINT to make that much difference on the hard drive. -- Some people have a "gift" link here. Know what I want? I want you to buy a CD from some indie artist. http://cdbaby.com/browse/from/lynch Yeah, I get a buck. So?