Peter Brawley wrote: > PJ > >> Why do I need a third table? > > The clue is "author (could be 2 or more)" in your books column list. > It is incorrect to store two author names or IDs in one column. The > relationship is 1:many. So you need a bridge table: > > books(id PK, etc...) > authors(id PK, etc...) > books_authors(id PK, bid references books(id),...,aid references > authors(id), listed_order smallint, etc...) > > Now one book with multiple authors has one books_authors row for each > of its authors, and you retrieve book & author info with a simple join. I did review normalization - I had read it before; it is a little clearer now, but.... so, now I'm getting very very confused... As I understand it, I have one table "books" it lists all the info for the book other than the author(s) or the categories ; for these I need an authors table and a category table... I'll continue with the authors as categories will surely be the same thing. BTW, I cannot use ISBN as PK since there are books without ISBN that are older than ISBN itself. So, there is no author or category field in the books table, right? Are you saying that the id PK of books, authors and books_authors are all the same? The "authors" table would have the fields auth_id, first_name, last_name. The "books_authors" table would have its own fields - id PK, bid, aid and listed_order (which would indicate iin which order to display the authors (?)) Where things go awry is in how to keep track of all this? Especially, when I have to enter the information in the main table, which is books. Every time I have a new listing I have to enter the main book info in the books table, the authors in the authors table and the rest in books_authors table... not to mention the categories - I don't suppose there is a simple solution to this? >From the looks of things I have to create some kind of php input function or group of functions to come up with a page with the fields necessary to enter all the data and then store the data in mySql. And to retrieve the information its a heap of functions to gather and populate a page with the info from mySql... > > PB > > ----- > > PJ wrote: >> Olaf Stein wrote: >> >>> Just about the authors >>> >>> You need a separate table for them and then an table linking authors >>> and >>> books. >>> >>> >> You lose me here... :-( >> Why do I need a third table? >> I may have 2 or three books with 3 authors, quite a few with 2 authors >> and many with just 1 author. >> I can't see creating an extra table for every book that has more than 1 >> author... ? ? ? ? >> And wouldn't it be the same thing for the categories? >> Isn't the relationship between the author field in the books table and >> the authors table done by an foreign key? >> >>> So you have table books, authors and rel_books_authors where rel_books >>> authors has 3 entries for a book with 3 authors just using the book >>> id and >>> the author is's >>> >>> Olaf >>> >>> >>> On 2/9/09 10:25 AM, "PJ" <af.gour...@videotron.ca> wrote: >>> >>> >>>> being a newbie to mysql, I'm a little confused about how to deal with >>>> the following: >>>> I am creating a database of books and have come down to this - >>>> table for >>>> books (books) including fields for >>>> id (primary key, auto-incr.) >>>> title >>>> author (could be 2 or more) >>>> category (could be several - eg. youth, fiction, comics, and history, >>>> for same book) >>>> lang (eng, french, spanish, or german) >>>> descr (short summary, if avail.) >>>> comment (review(s)) >>>> publisher >>>> pub_link (publisher's web addr. if avail.) >>>> bk_cover (image, if avail.) >>>> publish_date >>>> ISBN >>>> buy_link (if avail.) >>>> >>>> The other tables would be authors, categories, and buy_links. >>>> >>>> My problem is how to deal with several authors, categories, and >>>> links to >>>> sellers. >>>> What do I enter in the author field when I have several authors? Do I >>>> set up references to the author's name(s) in another table, like >>>> (3, 7, >>>> 23) each number representing the name of an author in another table? >>>> That is, .e.g. a number_id is entered in the author field in the books >>>> table; in the author table, I enter John Smith in the author_id >>>> field in >>>> the author table? Is the field for the author_id a foreign key? >>>> Same question for categories... >>>> buy_link - there are not many, but generally include an image and >>>> related info to be shown next to the books info (here, I suppose, >>>> just a >>>> few numbers will suffice to reference the table containing the >>>> information) and this field (buy_link_id) would be a foreign key (?) >>>> referencing the buy_link table? >>>> So, in a query (search) I would be doing joins from the books table to >>>> the author, category, and buy_link tables using foreign keys? >>>> >>>> But how do I deal with a search for a book by author? If there are, >>>> say, >>>> 3 authors (Red, White, and Blue) and the search is for White, the >>>> display should probably be formulated with a php function to >>>> display the >>>> book listing by book title (the standard display which includes all >>>> the >>>> relevant information about the book). So the search should first find >>>> the name of the author in the authors table and if it exists, then the >>>> author_id should reveal the ids for the relevant books and then these >>>> should be printed (or echoed) in the output. Gets kind of complicated >>>> doesn't it? >>>> >>>> Or would it all be simpler to just enter all the authors' names in the >>>> author field and then do a search for an author within the fields as a >>>> string? I suspect this would be rather slow. Also, same for categories >>>> and sellers since the whole database has to be searched? >>>> >>>> Am I on the right track? 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-- Phil Jourdan --- p...@ptahhotep.com http://www.ptahhotep.com http://www.chiccantine.com -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql?unsub=arch...@jab.org
