Thank you, Naomi. Good point about referential integrity.
>IMHO, multiple lookups would be easier to set up for referential integrity. Recently we used the approach you described for lookup tables (one lookup for multi purpose) and it was a bit challenging to create queries and also you would not be able to set up relationship properly.
>
>So, I would advise to use multiple small lookup tables. BTW, this is a common question and we may add it here
>
>
http://wiki.lessthandot.com/index.php/SQL_Server_Programming_Best_Practices (or better in Data Modeling Best Practices which doesn't exist yet).
>
>You may also check
http://forum.lessthandot.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=8562 and the thread referenced there.
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>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.
>>
>>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:
>>
>>TBL_ALIAS, C, 20
>>ENTRY, C, 20
>>DESCR, C, 40.
>>
>>By making different entries in TBL_ALIAS I can actually store many different (mostly lookup) tables in this "all-purpose" lookup table.
>>
>>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).
>>
>>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)?
>>
>>TIA
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