In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Jigal van Hemert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> From: "Martijn Tonies" >> Ehm... it might be me - but what sense does it make to have a NULL >> in a PK? >> If you "need" this, then your primary key probably isn't a primary key. >> >> Care to explain why and how you're designing your database? > Martijn, > The table contains an variable number of integer parameters for accounts: > id INT(11) - accountID > name VARCHAR(32) - parameter name > value INT(11) - parameter value > Other tables contain string, datetime, etc. parameters. > Since most searches are made for a value (or range) of one or more > parameters, a usable primary key is: > name-value-id That's a horrible denormalization. If one named parameter can hold only one INT value for one account id, then (id, name) could be a primary key; otherwise, you'd need a surrogate primary key. -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
