>Thank you. What about concern that some brought up regarding how DBAs look at this?

See my replies to Naomi re: RI.

>
>>Actually if your master lookup table has a good primary key, you use that for your RI and you are all set.
>>
>>I use a single table for all picklists on all of my systems.
>>
>>
>>
>>>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