When you say efficiency, it depends on efficiency for what. There is efficiency for storage... That is where normalization comes in, But for some situation like some reporting requirements, de-normalized reporting tables can prove to be much faster because you can reduce the number of joins. Thus it runs more efficiently but is not as storage efficient.
These reporting tables are not updated directly but are build from the normalized tables which are accessed and used by the update pages associated with them. We only build them twice a day so the reports are not real time but if you saw how much data is being packed into these reports and how large the tables are, you'd understand. Pat -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Gerry Danen Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 2:06 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [php_mysql] mysql record size efficiency... Before you start, do a Google search for "database normalization". That's the key to efficiency, that and proper use of indexes. http://dev.mysql.com/tech-resources/articles/intro-to-normalization.html has a good intro article, but does not take it all the way. Although the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalizationgoes "all the way" there is usually little point in going beyond the third normal form. Hope that helps to get you started. Gerry http://groups.yahoo.com/group/php_and_mysql/ On 3/8/06, J Siegel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I've been experimenting with mysql/php with little databases and > trivial tests. I'm now ready to move to my real project. It involves > tables with more than 100 fields. There will be about 50,000 of these > records. Before I start writing all of the code to handle this, I'm > wondering about efficiency... > > Would it be better to break these large records into smaller ones > spanning multiple tables? It is more efficient for storage or > searching if the records are single-large ones or smaller-multiple- > small ones? > > Are there any guidelines about this or anything else I should be > considering? > > Any references to discussions about this type of thing? > > Thank you very much for any help. > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] The php_mysql group is dedicated to learn more about the PHP/MySQL web database possibilities through group learning. Yahoo! Groups Links The php_mysql group is dedicated to learn more about the PHP/MySQL web database possibilities through group learning. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/php_mysql/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
