Originally Said By: Jason Byrnes
it is better (and a more correct way to design your database) to have the brandID and ProductID stored.the brandName and productName are defined in the brand and product tables
they should not be redifined in this loc_locations_new table. by using the ID's instead, you are properly normalizing your data which the goal of a relational database.
to return the brandName and productName associated to the ID's stored in the loc_locations_new table, you would use a joined query.
see the following page for more details on join queries:
sql_join.asp
Agreed -- I'm now using joins for the dynamic table. Unfortunately I have "inherited" this database, and there is much in it already used by other page assets. The site seems to have been developed with some kind of framework I cannot identify, and I'm having to "engineer" some of the newer features to work alongside the existing site. So I have no option to normalize the existing tables -- loc_locations_new is one of them.
That said -- am I hosed? The brands and products tables (and the resulting dynamic table) are configured so that the Dynamic Dropdowns work. The content of the brand and product form fields are chosen to use for the insert -- why are the ids being inserted instead?
