nice article

akohl — Fri, 07 Dec 2001 10:27:11 +0000

Thanks, especially for that article. I started reading it and it looks like its going to answer some of my questions.

I'll post again after I read it.

Mark Hensler — Thu, 06 Dec 2001 17:01:47 +0000

I normalize as best I can, but I never sacrafice my primary key. It just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

m1l — Thu, 06 Dec 2001 15:05:29 +0000

Andy,

Peter is correct in what he says, there is always more than one way to skin a cat, BUT, you are saying an instructor told you and this is because he is telling you true database normalisation and the reason for database normalisation is to reduce redundancy and having a field on the junction table that is just there to be a primary key is redundancy because it isn't needed.

As for non junction table, it is always good practice to have a primary key on them.

If you're interested in normalisation, I did a quick search and found this. I only skimmed the text but it seems reasonable.

http://home.earthlink.net/~billkent/Doc/simple5.htm

Mike

Peter J. Boettcher — Thu, 06 Dec 2001 14:44:21 +0000

Andy,

Remember, there is really no one RIGHT way of doing things, there's definately many wrong ways.

There is no rule saying that you can't have an autonumber PK in a junction table. I do this all the time, since it could end up saving a lot of headaches later on.

As for having the autonumber field in all your other tables, I also do this all the time for the same reason. It shouldn't be a problem if your queries are all setup properly.