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Planning and Creating the Database Tables

Before you tackle the process of creating database tables for an online store, think about the real-life shopping process. When you walk into a store, items are ordered in some fashion: The hardware and the baby clothes aren't mixed together, the electronics and the laundry detergent aren't side by side, and so on. Applying that knowledge to database normalization, already you can see you will need a table to hold categories and a table to hold items. In this simple store, items will each belong to one category.

Next, think about the items themselves. Depending on the type of store you have, your items may or may not have colors, and may or may not have sizes. But all your items will have a name, a description, ...