I think I get what you are trying to do and it sounds good (though I am still a beginner). The only thing I can think that might cause a problem is since you have more then a couple of tables you MAY have to write joins for all of them . Only you would know if you can do that and/or be comfortable doing it.
To get a stronger idea though of your design I would need to see either a logical ER diagram or all of the creates (I am very visual so I like pictures). *shrugs* whether or not you want to pass those along is up to you.
Respectfully, Ligaya Turmelle
Thanks for the reply. I'm still at the stage where I am deciding what I want the tables to look like before doing the CREATE TABLE statements. I do not think I will need JOINS since it is going to be more of a WHERE t1.x=t2.x (and SELECT t2.y [from the t2.x selected row]) type situation where I am selecting the fields form the support tables based on the link (Foreign Key) field not actually merging/matching tables.
""Robert A. Rosenberg"" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]I am converting a form that was originally designed to be Email Submitted into a Submit-to-PHP-Page Form (which will then insert the data into a MySQL Database).
I expect no problems in actually scanning the submission to extract the data but I have some questions on the design of the Tables that I will need to define to store the data.
I have done some research and have come up with a tentative design that I want to post here for critiquing. Here is what I have come up with.
Each form will get assigned a sequence number (SubmitterID) that will identify the form submission in all the tables (thus linking them).
There are a number of TextAreas where the user is requested to enter free form replies to questions. I am thinking that these should go into a separate table as Text fields of the correct size with SubmitterID as the Primary Key. That keeps the data away from the main table and thus only accessed when needed/requested as well as not bloating the size of the main table or slowing its retrieval/processing.
There are a number of blocks of CheckBoxes on the form. While I could, in theory, use a SET column type to store them, I get the impression that a better way is to create a Many-to-One table for each block with the total contents of each row being the CheckBoxID and SubmitterID (in that order) as the Primary Key. A Index for SubmitterID would also be defined. This way I can do a WHERE on either Column and get Index Usage as opposed to needing to do a row-by-row lookup. I have the impression that doing a WHERE over a SET Column (especially when I'm looking for more than one value) is not a good or efficient idea. The CheckBoxID would map to a 3rd table to get the actual CheckBoxName.
There are also two Select Tables (one for US States and one for Countries). While the States are passing the USPS 2-Letter State Codes, the Countries are passing the full Country Name as their OPTION VALUE=. I want to make a State Table and a Country Table using respectively the 2-Letter Code and a sequential reference number (which I will revise the Country OPTION tags to use as their VALUE) as the Primary Key with the State or Country Name as the other column.
To create the reference key and populate the OPTION pages with it I plan to take the current HTML for these tags and read them into a Text Editor where I will then alter them into MySQL Insert Commands to populate the Table. Then using a one-shot Quick&Dirty PHP page, I will read the table and recreate the Option Statements which would the be Cut&Pasted into the original HTML code replacing the old versions of the tags. The states go though the same "Turn into INSERT Commands" but there is no need for post processing or HTML Tag replacement.
Of course all the Table Pointers would be defined as Foreign Keys to insure Referential Integrity.
Am I making any mistakes in my design or am I on the correct track. I welcome any critique of my design or advice on how to improve it.
Thank you.
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