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POopinions and advice on database structure
 

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  1. POopinions and advice on database structure
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    <p>I'm building this tool for classifying data. Basically I will be regularly receiving rows of data in a flat-file that look like this:</p> <pre><code>a:b:c:d:e a:b:c:d:e a:b:c:d:e a:b:c:d:e </code></pre> <p>And I have a list of categories to break these rows up into, for example:</p> <pre><code>Original Cat1 Cat2 Cat3 Cat4 Cat5 --------------------------------------- a:b:c:d:e a b c d e </code></pre> <p>As of right this second, there category names are known, as well as number of categories to break the data down by. But this might change over time (for instance, categories added/removed...total number of categories changed). </p> <p>Okay so I'm not really looking for help on how to parse the rows or get data into a db or anything...I know how to do all that, and have the core script mostly written already, to handle parsing rows of values and separating into variable amount of categories. </p> <p>Mostly I'm looking for advice on how to structure my database to store this stuff. So I've been thinking about it, and this is what I came up with:</p> <pre><code>Table: Generated generated_id int - unique id for each row generated generated_timestamp datetime - timestamp of when row was generated last_updated datetime - timestamp of when row last updated generated_method varchar(6) - method in which row was generated (manual or auto) original_string varchar (255) - the original string Table: Categories category_id int - unique id for category category_name varchar(20) - name of category Table: Category_Values category_map_id int - unique id for each value (not sure if I actually need this) category_id int - id value to link to table Categories generated_id int - id value to link to table Generated category_value varchar (255) - value for the category </code></pre> <p>Basically the idea is when I parse a row, I will insert a new entry into table <code>Generated</code>, as well as X entries in table <code>Category_Values</code>, where X is however many categories there currently are. And the category names are stored in another table <code>Categories</code>.</p> <p>What my script will immediately do is process rows of raw values and output the generated category values to a new file to be sent somewhere. But then I have this db I'm making to store the data generated so that I can make another script, where I can search for and list previously generated values, or update previously generated entries with new values or whatever.</p> <p>Does this look like an okay database structure? Anything obvious I'm missing or potentially gimping myself on? For example, with this structure...well...I'm not a sql expert, but I think I should be able to do like </p> <pre><code>select * from Generated where original_string = '$string' // id is put into $id </code></pre> <p>and then </p> <pre><code>select * from Category_Values where generated_id = '$id' </code></pre> <p>...and then I'll have my data to work with for search results or form to alter data...well I'm fairly certain I can even combine this into one query with a join or something but I'm not that great with sql so I don't know how to actually do that..but point is, I know I <em>can</em> do what I need from this db structure..but am I making this harder than it needs to be? Making some obvious noob mistake?</p>
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    1. USOMG Ponies
    1. USslinkhi
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    1. COwelcome to stackoverflow, very nice question, good layout and lots of background.
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    2. COFWIW: select * from Category_Values where generated_id in (select generated_id from Generated where original_string='$string')
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      1. USJeremiah
    3. COThanks Jeremiah, will write that down :)
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