Chapter 19. Designing Tables
Introduction
In Chapters 15, “Creating Tables,” and 16, “Specifying Integrity Constraints,” we have shown which statements we can use to create tables with their integrity constraints. This chapter looks more closely at the process of designing a database structure. Before you can create a database, you must have designed a structure for it. During this design process, you decide which tables should be defined and which columns should be included in each table. The process of designing databases, then, is comparable to the work of an architect, while creating tables resembles the construction job.
For any given application, there are generally several possible table structures. This choice can be subject to different ...
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