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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-04T06:57:36+00:00

I want to create a database in SQLite with two tables: Customer and Orders.

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I want to create a database in SQLite with two tables: Customer and Orders. Each Customer can have many Orders; (I understand that’s a one-to-many relationship). Each Order can have many “line items” (a line item is a specific order for an “item”), in addition to the credit card info, terms and shipping info (non-address type info). I need the ability to find all of the orders for any particular customer, but do not have to find the customer based on an order.

This is what I have so far for the Customer table:

[db executeUpdate:@"CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS CustData ("
 "BUS_NAME TEXT PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL, "
 "EMAIL TEXT, "
 "PHONE TEXT, "
 "SHOP_NAME TEXT, "
 "SHOP_ADDR1 TEXT, "
 "SHOP_ADDR2 TEXT, "
 "SHOP_CITY_STATE TEXT, "
 "SHOP_ZIP TEXT, "
 "SHIP_NAME TEXT, "
 "SHIP_ADDR1 TEXT, "
 "SHIP_ADDR2 TEXT, "
 "SHIP_CITY_STATE TEXT, "
 "SHIP_ZIP TEXT, "
 "NOTES TEXT)"];

This is what I have for the Order table:

[db executeUpdate:@"CREATE TABLE Orders ("
 "CUST_ID TEXT REFERENCES CustData, "
 "ORDER_NBR TEXT, "
 "SALES_NAME TEXT, "
 "CREDIT_CARD TEXT, "
 "EXP_DATE TEXT, "
 "CID TEXT, "
 "NOTES TEXT, "
 "PCS INTEGER, "
 "PATTERN TEXT, "
 "STYLE_NAME TEXT, "
 "PRICE DECIMAL)" ];

PCS, Pattern, Style_Name and Price are considered the “line items”.

My question is: is the correct way to define these tables with regard to the “line items”, or is there a better way?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Your design for line items is not correct.

    Consider that just as one customer has one or more orders, each order has one or more line items. Therefore, you should have one table for the order itself and a separate table for line items. The only repeated columns between these two tables should be the column (or columns) that uniquely identify an order.

    In the design you showed, this would mean splitting out PCS, Pattern, Style_Name, and Price into the line items table along with either Order_Nbr (if that alone is sufficient to identify an order) or else Cust_ID and Order_Nbr.

    Also consider that one customer may have orders for different shipping addresses, that the shipping address or billing address may change over time, and that shipping address and billing address are really simply instances of the same entity (kind of thing) and you can see that you might well need a separate table to hold addresses that are linked to customers.

    There are other issues you might want to consider as well (such as the advisability of storing credit card information), but this should get you started.

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