Normalization and splitting tables?

[GoBruins]

hi,

i have a simple database that contains a table called CLIENTS,
consisting of fields:

ClientID
ClientName
ClientAddress
ClientPassword

not every client will have a password assigned to them. is that a bad
way to structure things? am i better off getting rid of the
ClientPassword field and creating another table called PASSWORDS,
consisting of fields:

ClientID
ClientPassword

then connecting the two tables via the ClientID fields?


thanks in advance.

 

[Bill Mosca, MS Access MVP]

Your table structure doesn't really warrent another table, but if you want
to normalize ad nausium you would have a password table because a Null field
should be null only if the data will eventually be filled in or is currently
unknown. In this case, you indicate there will never be a password for some
clients.

 

[GoBruins]

Your table structure doesn't really warrent another table, but if you want
to normalize ad nausium you would have a password table because a Null field
should be null only if the data will eventually be filled in or is currently
unknown. In this case, you indicate there will never be a password for some
clients.

thanks for the reply. i was thinking along the same lines. i had no
idea how much space i could save, or how much faster the db would be
(if any) if i created the PASSWORDS table. i was trying to weigh those
benefits against making the db more complicated.

 

[dbahooker]

do both.

experiment with the other table; it will take what.. 2 minutes?

-Aaron

 

[Bill Mosca, MS Access MVP]

The fewer tables involved in a query, the faster it will run, but in this
case, I don't think you will lose or gain anything.