>Ken,
>
>Just to give a further example, from some stuff I was helping a buddy with last weekend. He was setting up an order entry system for a Mail Order house currently only doing video, but soon to expand. There's a ton of detail that needs to be stored about a video, getting down into actor, actress data.
>
>If they start carrying widgets, there would be a whole lot of wasted space if a widget row had empty columns for all the video info that needed to be stored.

Yes - there are many, many real world examples - especially with line-item type data. Just think of the difference between items for almost ANY business that sells both parts and service. Typically, service items would need a lot more info and thus be a great candidate for a 1 to 1 in a joined cursor.

Despite several claims on this thread that it is "rare", I believe if developers took a good hard look at just how many null or empty fields end up in many table records, they would see the need for a 1-to-1 design in a lot of cases.

Tx,