Home Forums SQL Server 7,2000 Globalization Multiple Language Database Design - Additional Columns vs. Additional Tables... RE: Multiple Language Database Design - Additional Columns vs. Additional Tables...

  • Why not add "language" to your PK?  Table could be like:

    FLD (PK): ID

    FLD (PK): Language

    FLD:  TextValue

    Then you'd have records like

    A - English - English Text A

    A - French - French Text A

    A - Spanish - Spanish Text A

    B - English - English Text B

    B - French - French Text A

    You should have a lookup table containing the languages which has referential integrity to the Language column in your data table.  Doing it this way, if you get a new language you just add a single record to the lookup table (say German) and you can populate the new text values into your data table without any DB structure changes.  Additionally if you find you're storing data values for one language a lot more than another, you're not ending up with a lot of records containing empty values (which you would if you have records containing a field for each language).

    My two cents...