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POTable Structure for alternative to storing an array in a single MySQL field
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  1. POTable Structure for alternative to storing an array in a single MySQL field
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    copied!<p>I am currently building a car booking system using PDO PHP and MySQL but am struggling with how to structure my tables for any car extras the user may have added to their booking. </p> <p>I currently have the following tables at the moment which use the reservation_table to link the booking_id with the car_id (taken from their separate tables):</p> <p>car_table:</p> <pre><code>ID | car_make | car_name 1 | Ford | Focus 2 | BMW | Z3 3 | Audi | A5 </code></pre> <p>booking_table:</p> <pre><code>booking_ID | booking_time | total_cost | etc.. 125674 | 2013-02-02 | 91.55 887463 | 2013-01-19 | 52.00 209930 | 2013-01-11 | 23.99 </code></pre> <p>reservation_table:</p> <pre><code>ID | booking_ID | car_ID 1 | 125674 | 2 2 | 887463 | 2 3 | 209930 | 1 </code></pre> <p>extras_table:</p> <pre><code>ID | car_extra | extra_price 1 | GPS | 22.99 2 | Baby Seat | 12.99 3 | Car Charger | 15.99 </code></pre> <p>Originally I was going to add an extra column into the reservation_table using an array of the selected car extras to link them with the booking as so: booking_table:</p> <pre><code>ID | booking_ID | car_ID | car_extras 1 | 125674 | 2 | [2,3] 2 | 887463 | 2 | [1] 3 | 209930 | 1 | [1,3] </code></pre> <p>but I have read that this is bad practice. How can I structure my tables so that I can assign the selected car extra ID's (which can range from the user selecting 0 to 12) to a particular booking?</p> <p>Would the following work by creating a new table that linked just the booking_ID with the extra_ID (this would mean multiple rows of the same booking id though):</p> <p>selected_extras_table:</p> <pre><code>ID | booking_ID | car_extra_ID 1 | 125674 | 2 2 | 125674 | 3 3 | 887463 | 1 4 | 209930 | 1 5 | 209930 | 3 </code></pre>
 

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