From: Martijn Tonies Date: November 17 2008 5:56pm Subject: Re: normalised designs: customer database List-Archive: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql/215251 Message-Id: <000501c948dd$d992f930$9902a8c0@martijnws> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > >> If all you want to do is to restrict a field to certain values, and > >aren't > >> concerned with cascading operations, is a set more efficient than a > >foreign > >> key? > > > >A Set or Enum? > > > >I can understand "enum"s, but sets are evil. > > > [JS] Why is that? I've been using sets, but I could use enums. Set just > seemed more appropriate for a small (two or three) number of values. Besides the fact that they're non-portable, I don't think they can be properly indexed either, that is, if they contain multiple possible values of the set. Martijn Tonies Database Workbench - tool for InterBase, Firebird, MySQL, NexusDB, Sybase SQL Anywhere, Oracle & MS SQL Server Upscene Productions http://www.upscene.com My thoughts: http://blog.upscene.com/martijn/ Database development questions? Check the forum! http://www.databasedevelopmentforum.com