I brought this up to another gentleman in a different thread but perhaps it will suit you better. Check out EAV schema modeling.
I wrote about it a bit ago here http://blog.joebeeson.com/?p=30 but it may do you better to look at a schema, which you can download and run against a test database. http://blog.joebeeson.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/schema1.sql Let me know how it works out for you! On Sep 18, 6:57 am, "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi, > I thought I'd ask for any advice in this direction. I am not looking > for a quick fix. More like gotchas and good ideas when going in this > direction. If anyone recognizes what I am rambling about, please nudge > me in the right direction, or show me a rubberized room if that is > more appropriate. > I think I will need a model that ideally should work much like a > normal model but the available fields will change and be very > "dynamic". That is the data will be imported Excel files (or other > structured data) where one may have different "fields" from the > second. I would still like to be able to somehow search and sort these > "records". > > Man, this is hard to explain in english. It could be explained as a > kind of database for storing a database in @:) > > OK, try this: > If I have a normal table called users (id, uname, pass, email), Cake > can give me the schema and I can "scaffold" a form containing these > fields. If I change the schema in the database I can get the new > fields automatically. Now take that one step further and say each user > may have different properties. > > So thought (not really complete tables): > I will create a table called users (id) > AND a table called fields (id, name, type, user_id) > AND a table called records (id, data, field_id, user_id) > > Maybe not exactly like that but you get the idea. Tables modeling the > structure of a "virtual" table. So when I do a find on my User model I > want to try to query for in the records table and return the users > that have records that match some criteria. Complex searches are not > the first priority. That would be actually safely storing this kind of > imported data in a good way. > > OK, still with me? Sound at all similar? Sounds crazy? Got any ideas? > Please let me know . > > Martin --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CakePHP" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cake-php?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
