Let me see if I can make this a bit more clear. After your comments I can see how you might have been confused. Now, after 5 hours of meetings, this might get more confusing but lets hope not.

By adding a field to the table that you want to store your generic "name" and "value" fields into - you increase it's ability to accept values for different reasons exponentially (or is it geometrically?). My suggestion is to add another field - call it "type". This new field would contain a value that you could use to group all your variables together with. Kinda like tieing a bunch of sticks together so that when you grab the bunch your get them all - same idea with the data fetching routine - grab them by "type" not by variable name. If you do this you limit the Disk I/O and optimize the use of buffering available for which ever data base engine you are using.

This new field now groups all your variables - you fetch them (using your WHERE clause by including the new "type" field). Once you have all your vairables - you can allow the user to alter them in any fashion you wish. Or for that matter, the program can alter them in any fashion it wishes.

Ok - with that understanding - now you can extend any database table without having to specifically add new fields to existing tables - you simply add data to an already existing table - this new data allows you to group, identify and quantify the new field data. So - for instance - there is an already existing table named MonthlyStats - you need a field for MeanSales - you simple add a record in the the "other" table (the one you added "type" to) type = MonthlyStats, name - MeanSales, value=1,200,000.00.

If you add some "smart comments" into your code where you place these "hooks" - you can then later search and replace this code with code that looks at the parent table (the one you extended) - this of course assumes that the "quick fix" you did to avoid having to bring the database server down for maintenance to add a field earlier has at some point been done. Oh yeah - you would have to create a data migration utility to take the data from one table to the parent.

If this is still confusing (as I'm sure it is) - just drop me a note and I will forward you my phone number. Maybe I can explain this better in that context.

In reply to Re: Re: Re: Another Opinion Request...(config file) by draconis
in thread Another Opinion Request...(config file) by powerhouse

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