i am developing an application for a real-estate company. the problem i am facing is about implementing the database. however i am just confused on which way to adopt i would appreciate if you could help me out in reasoning the database implementation.
here is my situation.
a) i have to store the property details in the database.
b) the properties have approximately 4-5 categories to which it will belong for ex : resedential, commnercial, industrial etc.
c) now the categories have sub-categories. for example. a residential category will have sub category such as. Apartment / Independent House / Villa / Farm House/ Studio Apartment etc. and hence same way commercial and industrial or agricultural will too have sub-categories.
d) each sub-categories will have to store the different values. like a resident will have features like Bedrooms/ kitchens / Hall / bathroom etc. the features depends on the sub categories.
for an example on how i would want to implement my application you can have a look at this site.
http://www.magicbricks.com/bricks/postProperty.html
i could possibly think of the solution like this.
a) create four to five tables depending upon the categories which will be existing(the problem is categories might increase in the future).
b) create different tables for all the features, location, price, description and merge the common property table into one. for example all the property will have the common entity such as location, total area, etc.
what would you advice for me given the current situation.
thank you
In order to implement this properly you need to know (read) about database normalization.
Every entity needs its own table. You will have tables for:
If you have hierarchical categories, strictly organised in a tree structure, you may want to implement this as a tree structure, all stored in one table. If there are possibilities of overlaps, then it means you need to have different tables for each, like: