Question

Can anyone suggest a database design for the following:

A user can make a catalogue
Within a catalogue a user can make a range – i.e. a range of products
Within a range a user can add multiple products
Within a range a user can add multiple ranges -> range->range->range all with products in them.

I currently have in my database –

catalogue_range with – id, name, description
and
catalogue_product with – id, range_id, name, description

can anyone see what I’m trying to produce?

My aim is to be able to make multiple catalogue ranges within a catalogue range and add multiple products to each of these catalogue ranges.

Here is my current SQL:

`catalogue_range` (
      `id` char(40) NOT NULL,
      `profile_id` char(40) NOT NULL,
      `type` enum('pdf','db') DEFAULT NULL,
      `status` enum('new','draft','live') NOT NULL,
      `name` varchar(64) NOT NULL,
      `description` varchar(1000) NOT NULL,
      `updated` timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
      PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
      KEY `profile_id` (`profile_id`)
    )

`catalogue_product` (
  `id` char(40) NOT NULL,
  `catalogue_id` char(40) NOT NULL,
  `order` smallint(5) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `name` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
  `description` varchar(250) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  KEY `catalogue_id` (`catalogue_id`)
) 

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

1. catalogue(catalogue id, your private attributes)
2. product(product id, #catalogue id, your private attributes)
3. range(range id, #range id parent, your private attributes)
4. product range(#product id, #range id)

You will need stored procedures/applicative algorithms to compile:

• the list of product of a range (to calculate recursive sqls mysql doesn’t offer analytic functions as oracle does)
• the list of ranges of a catalogue/range

Hope it helps.
S.