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Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 8
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Newbie Poster
Hi,
I'm creating a web database as a bit of learning project.
In short it's going to a on-line menu viewer, where people can upload (type in) their food/takeaway food menus.
The problem I'm having is with the design and as each outlet can have a differing number of starters/mains/deserts etc..
inital thoughts were:
Menus
------
Menu_id
Menu_outlet
Starter1
Starter2
Starter3
Starter4
etc...
but what if an outlet has more that 4 starters?
Can anyone point me in the right direction please?
thanks jinx
I'm creating a web database as a bit of learning project.
In short it's going to a on-line menu viewer, where people can upload (type in) their food/takeaway food menus.
The problem I'm having is with the design and as each outlet can have a differing number of starters/mains/deserts etc..
inital thoughts were:
Menus
------
Menu_id
Menu_outlet
Starter1
Starter2
Starter3
Starter4
etc...
but what if an outlet has more that 4 starters?
Can anyone point me in the right direction please?
thanks jinx
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Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 9
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Rep Power: 0
Solved Threads: 2
Newbie Poster
Do some research on normalization.
You might want to consider a simple setup where you have three tables.
Menu
MenuID (Primary Key)
MenuOutlet
Starter
StarterID (Primary Key)
StarterDescription
MenuStarter
MenuID (Primary Key - 1)
StarterID (Primary Key - 2)
This setup allows you to have as many starters as you want for each menu. The MenuStarter table would just use a concatenated primary key that could link those two tables. Hope this makes sense...
Again, some research on normalization would probably help.
You might want to consider a simple setup where you have three tables.
Menu
MenuID (Primary Key)
MenuOutlet
Starter
StarterID (Primary Key)
StarterDescription
MenuStarter
MenuID (Primary Key - 1)
StarterID (Primary Key - 2)
This setup allows you to have as many starters as you want for each menu. The MenuStarter table would just use a concatenated primary key that could link those two tables. Hope this makes sense...
Again, some research on normalization would probably help.
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Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: North Bay Ontario
Posts: 174
Reputation:
Rep Power: 1
Solved Threads: 20
Junior Poster
bcasp is pointing you in the right direction. As a further enlightenment, any time you ask yourself the question 'what if column X has more than Y choices' is an indication that that column should be broken out into a separate table.
Amer Neely - Web Mechanic
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