Timasmith wrote:
> Suppose I have a database table with 20 fields which are lookups to a
> single table.
>
> configtable(configtable_id, a_field, something_lookup_id,
> another_lookup_id, ...)
> lookup(lookup_id, value, description, ...)
>
>
> what is going to be faster to map the rows to an Object which needs
> the 'value' for every field ending in lookup_id
[snip]
> b) Cache all lookup values and populate
> It seems that the latter *might* be better to scale outward better,
> as
> you could add application servers to do the caching/mapping and you
> only select from a single table?
It *might* scale better and be faster. It might not. The only way to
know is to test it. When you do compare, don't forget to allow for
handling changes to the lookup table in the database.
--
Richard Huxton
Archonet Ltd