table(s) design for a particular problem

  • Hi there,

    I have a design issue for how to best store data. I have two tables Bench and Index as feeder tables and I need to store the users selection in a 3rd. Assume BenchID and IndexID for the pk of each.

    I need to be able to store different mixed combinations and groupings of each.

    So I need to be able to store a Bench reference to a Bench reference and I also need to be able to store Bench->Index, Bench->Multiple Index,Bench->multiple Index that themselves are tied together and the kicker of Bench->multiple indexes not tied together+multiple indexes tied together.

    When I say 'tied together' its the indexes are assigned a weight factor.

    Oh and at the Bench level, I need to store 3 flags (intFlag1,intFlag2,intFlag3).

    So I might have Bench1 @.6 and Bench2 @.4

    or Bench1 with Index1 @ 1

    or Bench1 with Index1 @ .2, Index2 @.4, @Index3 @.2

    or Bench1 with Index1,Index2,Index3 @ .4 and @Index5,Index6,Index7 @ .6

    or finally Bench1 with Index1 @ .2, Index2 @.2, @Index3 @.2 and @Index5,Index6,Index7 @ .4

    I was thinking I could basically store all of the indexes and weights in a single string but I cannot figure how to group the combined indexes together. Anything I can think of doesn't allow for referential integrity. Also, I'm not sure how I can use the same table to store bench->bench AND bench->index records.

    Any suggestions would be appreciated.

    thanks,

    Chris

  • nvm ended up using multiple columns... somehow my boss thought that parsing 16,21,12|.1,.11,.11^53,54,55,56,57|.68 was harder than using 4 extra columns *shrug*

    (still cant delete messages)

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