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Asked: 2026-05-26T13:05:46+00:00

How should I set up my database / table, if I do not know

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How should I set up my database / table, if I do not know the number of fields I would populate per record?

For example, if I have a web form that allows a user to enter all the cars he owns, and I don’t want to limit him to a certain number, how would I store this in the database end?

The above problem extends to similar situations such as storing a user’s order (variable number of items per order) etc.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    In Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS) instead you create child records in a dependent table that relate child entities (cars) with parent entities (users). There is a concept known as database normalization, and the objective is that each table contains data for a single type of entity.

    So you have a user table with the user information:

    user_id | user_name | email             | ...
  1234  | User1     | user1@example.com | ...
  2356  | User2     | user2@example.com | ...

    Then another table for storing the information of each car of a user:

    user_car_id | user_id | car_label | make      | model | ...
          1 |   1234  | MyCar     | Ford      | 2011  | ...
          2 |   2356  | A Car     | Chevrolet | 2010  | ...
          3 |   1234  | MyOtherCar| BMW       | 2000  | ...

    So instead of storing the info of the cars in the user table, you have a table for storing car (user_car) information related to each user by way of the user_id column. This is an example of a one-to-many relationship, in which one user can have many related cars.

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