M.D.G. Lange wrote:
In order for a "dictionary" system I have created the following system:
tbllanguages
- ID
- name
Primary key ( ID )
tbldictionary
- wordid
- languageid
- value
Primary key ( wordid, languageid)
The idea is to have a word id in several languages, so you only have to
look up the word id and give the language you would like to get the
message in and you'll be presented the translation.
So far so good... only wordid is not unique, making it not suitable to
use it in foreign keys... however I'd like a similar idea:
tblsystemmessages
- ID
- wordid
- pgsqlerrorcode
Primary key ( ID )
"Foreign key" wordid references tbldictionary.wordid
It is not possible to create a constraint Foreign key for "wordid". No
problem there, but I want to be certain that a given wordid exists in
tbldictionary.
I'd split the existence of the word from its presence in the
language-lookup table. Then you can have a reference to the existence of
the "raw word".
raw_words
- wordid
- wordname
Of course "wordname" will probably be in one of your target languages
anyway, but conceptually doesn't have to be.
You can always have triggers on tbldictionary to automatically insert
into raw_words if you'd like.
--
Richard Huxton
Archonet Ltd
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TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
