-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Michael She wrote:
Yes, in some cases. It's called Normalization.It _really_ depends on how you are going to use the data. For example, answering the query 'How many restaurants are open between 7 AM and 3 PM ' is _really_ hard with your data model, but a piece of cake with a normalized one.
Although normalization is good practice, it can complicate queries.
Have you thought about storing just M/T/W/etc and then storing the Opening, Closing times as a comma delimited string? Maybe like
Monday: 11AM,1PM,5PM,1AM
Tuesday 10AM,1PM,6PM,12AM
You'll only need 7 fields.
I'm not saying that people should always go down to 3rd, 4th, or 5th normal form (yes it does go that far), but in many cases, doing things like storing delimitted strings, or 56 columns to represent things that would be better off as rows in another table can end up 'boxing' you in, so to speak.
Besides, rationally-normalized tables in most cases take up less storage space, which means more fits in RAM, which means faster queries :)
-Mark
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/ |/ /_ __/ __/ __ \/ / Mark Matthews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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