Question

I have an application that has a status table see Database best practices – Status for an example

I want to be able to show a history of the status changes. There are 2 ways I can see for implementing it using mvc3 and the entity model like this – http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/getting-started-with-ef-using-mvc/creating-an-entity-framework-data-model-for-an-asp-net-mvc-application

I can always just have a StatusID property on whatever object needs to link to the status table e.g.

Job
ID
Name
StatusID

Status
ID
Status

Or, I could have a StatusHistory table and make the StatusID property a function that return a Status object e.g.

Job
ID
Name

Status
ID
Status

StatusHistory
ID
JobID
StatusID
Date

and on the Job model class (Job.cs) have a function called Status which return 1 Status Object by querying the StatusHistory table for the latest status object that relates to the Job.

Has anyone done anything similar to this?

Answer 1

you may have

StatusHistory

• ID
• JobID
• StatusID
• Date

while Job contain current StatusID.

Job

• ID
• StatusID (latest)

this way you “cache” the Job’s latest Status instead of searching..

StatusHistories.OrderDescending(s => s.Date).FirstOrDefault(); //unnecessary task

every time you need it.