Hi > And what's the problem with networkcard_products being a separate table > that shares a key with the products table? > > CREATE TABLE products (product_id int, ...) > CREATE TABLE networkcard_products_data (product_id int, ...) > CREATE VIEW networkcard_products AS > SELECT products.product_id, ... > FROM products > JOINT networkcard_products_data USING (product_id) > > What functionality does table inheritance offer that this traditional > relational method of doing things doesn't?
Well, if you also have soundcard_products, in your example you could have a product which is both a networkcard AND a soundcard. No way to restrict that a product can be only one 'subclass' at a time... If you can make that restriction using the relational model, you can do the same as with subclasses. But afaict that is very hard to do... Sander. ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org
