Nick S wrote:
> On 12 May, 16:18, Captain Paralytic <paul_laut...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On 12 May, 15:31, Nick S <nrsut...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > Hi
>>
>> > I have a real headache of a problem and was wondering if anyone can
>> > help me.
>>
>> > I'm writing a system that saves stock items. Each item can have
>> > none or an infinite number of options attached to it.
>>
>> > For example you can have a cupboard door as one stock item or you
>> > can have a Polo Neck sweater with the options of size:small,
>> > medium, large
>> > and colour: red, green, blue.
>>
>> > My problem is that I have no idea how to store this information in
>> > the
>> > database. My first thought was three tables STOCK_ITEMS,
>> > STOCK_OPTIONS, OPTION_VALUES The item name would be stored in
>> > STOCK_ITEMS with the option names in STOCK_OPTIONS and their values
>> > in
>> > OPTION_VALUES. This works all very well until you want to store
>> > something that doesn't have any options. Now I have one item in
>> > STOCK_ITEMS with one id and another item that DOES have options
>> > with a
>> > seperate id in OPTION_VALUES.
>>
>> > I feel like I'm going around in circles with this and it feels like
>> > there should be such a simple solution but I'm just not seeing it.
>>
>> > Is there anyone out there that can give me a pointer and show me
>> > the ligh?. Am I looking at the problem from completly the wrong
>> > angle? What I want is a common way to identify a stock item (even
>> > if it does or doesn't have an option)
>>
>> Hi Nick,
>> first thing to do is to identify the relationships between Items,
>> Options and Values.
>>
>> For a start, can an option have more than one value? If not, then
>> options and values should appear in the same table.
>>
>> An example of each of the possible combinations would help.- Hide
>> quoted text -
>>
>> - Show quoted text -
>
> Hi Captain.
>
> Thanks for the reply. I think I demonstrated that in my initial
> post. An item can have many or no options and an option can have 1 or
> more values.
>
> Thanks

Ahh, I think I am with you now. I had taken option values as being prices
for the option.

I see now that you mean that options are things like size or colour and your
optio values are small,medium,large or red,green,blue respectively.

OK, I'll have a think.