If you use one table, you cannot use referential integrity(RI). From DBA point of view each lookup list should be a separate table with RI enforced. What exactly do you win by having only 1 table?

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>I don't know if this question was asked before (maybe even by me <g>) but I came across this issue again in converting from VFP data to SQL Server database.
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>From the times when I was working in Clipper (and moved the app to VFP 6.0) I had a limit on number of handles could be used when opening tables, I have one table that is sort of a "container" for many "lookup" tables. The table structure is:
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>TBL_ALIAS, C, 20
>ENTRY, C, 20
>DESCR, C, 40.
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>By making different entries in TBL_ALIAS I can actually store many different (mostly lookup) tables in this "all-purpose" lookup table.
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>When moving the app to SQL Server, creating another 20-25 small tables does not seem to be a problem. Hopefully it will not cause too much extra load on SQL Server (vs. having to deal with just one table).
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>But my question is in general, what is a good practice - when creating a new application in SQL Server - using a separate table for each small lookup or combining them into one (as I did back in DOS times)?
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>TIA