Question

I have a set of categories for a MySQL database that wont change much, but might on occasion. (maybe around a dozen choices)

For this sort of situation, where answers are basically multiple choice, should I just use a text field in my main table then in PHP limit the answers, or make a separate table to hold the lookup values then store the id from the category table in the main table?

Just looking for normalization best practices 🙂

Answer 1

Both are OK, they have the following consequences:

• Text field means the set of answers is maintained in the PHP code
• Lookup table means the set of answers is maintained in the database

I think it depends if they are “data” (-> database) or really part of the application (-> definitely PHP code, e.g. if you have if ($cat == 'x') { ... } anywhere in your code.)

It sounds to me more like they are data so in that case put them in a table.