Re: Recursive Arrays 101

On 10/26/2015 08:12 AM, Rob Sargent wrote:
> On 10/26/2015 08:43 AM, Jim Nasby wrote:
>> On 10/25/15 8:10 PM, David Blomstrom wrote:
>>> @ Adrian Klaver: Oh, so you're suggesting I make separate tables for
>>> kingdoms, classes and on down to species. I'll research foreign keys and
>>> see what I can come up with. I hope I can make separate tables for
>>> mammal species, bird species, fish species, etc. There are just so many
>>> species - especially fish - the spreadsheets I use to organize them are
>>> just about maxed out as it is.
>>
>> The suggestion is simply to have 7 tables:
>>
>> CREATE TABLE kingdom(
>>   kingdom_id serial PRIMARY KEY
>>   , kingdom_name text NOT NULL
>>   , ...
>> );
>> CREATE TABLE phylum(
>>   phylum_id serial PRIMARY KEY
>>   , kingdom_id int NOT NULL REFERENCES kingdom
>>   , ...
>> );
>> CREATE TABLE class(
>> ...
>> );
>>
>> and so-on.
> Seems to me that if life boils down to four attributes one would have a
> single table with those four attributes on the particular life form.

Out of curiosity what are those four attributes? It would have made
memorizing all those organisms a lot easier when I was in school:)


> Now, the four attributes could be ids into definitional tables but I
> suspect the querying will be done string/name so why complicate the
> lookups: make the names a foreign key in the defs if necessary.
>
> Personally I think the recursive structure is the way to go.


--
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com