Question

Let’s say that I’m developing an application to track boxing results. Is the best way to track these to have two tables, like so:

Boxers ====== id name  Matches ======= id match_number boxer_id opponent_id result 

… and then have two records for each match, one for the winner, and one for the loser, something like this:

id match_number boxer_id opponent_id result -- ------------ -------- ----------- ------ 1  1            1001     2001        WIN 2  1            2001     1001        LOSS 

… or am I missing a better way to do this?

What if there wasn’t a result stored, just a recording that the two opponents were matched up?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Well, for a fully normalized, I’d go with:

Boxers – as cited.

Matches:

id  / match_number   (Don't think these need to be distinct anymore) winner (FK-Boxers; Nullable, for for matches scheduled, but not decided yet) 

Opponents:

id  (meaningless PK value.  Optional.       you could use the other two fields as the PK) match_id boxer_id 

Two rows in Opponents and one in Matches for each match.

(Updated to add suggestions from other answers)