On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 1:55 PM, Roberts, Jon <Jon.Roberts@asurion.com> wrote:
> Using the term "metadata" is misleading in your example. Metadata is
> data about data and in your example, you just have data. It is fine to
> join tables in an RDBMS.
>
I believe you missed the OP's actual goal. He's not interested in
linking printing options to specific rows of the foo table; he wants
each column of the foo table to have a single entry in the printing
options table; that is, he wants a foreign key reference to the system
catalog giving the columns of entity foo. He does, in fact, appear to
be interested in a foreign key reference to a table's metadata.
--
- David T. Wilson
david.t.wilson@gmail.com