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List:       mysql
Subject:    Re: how to design book db
From:       mos <mos99 () fastmail ! fm>
Date:       2008-12-29 15:56:15
Message-ID: 6.0.0.22.2.20081229094838.029f3418 () mail ! messagingengine ! com
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At 08:17 AM 12/29/2008, you wrote:
> I am rather fresh to MySQL and am trying to fix and update a website - 
> modifying from just plain html to css, php and MySQL. I'm working on 
> FreeBSD 7.0, MySQL 5.1,30, PHP5.28 & Apache 2.2.11.
> I need figure out how to set up (design) a database of books which gets 
> rather complicated since I must implement searches of the database based 
> on key words including categories, ISBN numbers, authors, dates, etc. etc.
> The problem is how to deal with duplication of the data - In other words, 
> a book may have not only several authors, but also several ISBN numbers, 
> fall under several categories, different dates (year of publication), 
> several publishers & I probably haven't yet seen all of the variables.
> I certainly do not want to enter the same book many times with just one of 
> each different variable. I suppose that one way to do it is to enter one 
> row with a lot of columns to store all the the different variables; a 
> search would probably be simpler this way if the search criteria are 
> limited to 1 word. Or would it? I rather do think that the search should 
> be limited to 1 word anyway. :-)
> If the search would be for a category, for instance, would it make sense 
> to use a column for category with an input of keywords for the different 
> categories?; rather than a column for each category or another table of 
> categories?
> Multiple publication years could probably be different row entries since 
> there would not be more than 2 or would be a different publisher, 
> language, or country.
> I really with to K.I.S.S this undertaking and would appreciate any help or 
> suggestions.
> If it helps, you can see the site as it is at present 
> http://www.ptahhotep.com - but since it is rather messed up at the moment, 
> it is best viewed with IE. Some of the links and jscripts don't work on 
> FireFox.
> TIA,
> PJ

You can of course simplify things by putting the alternate ISBN number in 
the description of the book and put a full text index on it. Same with 
alternate authors etc.. It would be a catch all for items that you don't 
have columns for.

I think the best line of attack is to work from an existing model. Why 
re-invent the wheel?

There are a few bookstore/library schemas here:
http://www.databaseanswers.org/data_models/

http://www.edumax.com/oracle-basics-06-normalization-and-sample-schema-creation-normalization-and-sample-schema-creation.html


Mike 


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