Re: [SQL] How to split very long tables?

On Mon, 6 Jul 1998, Stuart Rison wrote:

> I am using postgreSQL to matain a database of breast cancer patient data.
> I have create a hugely long (i.e. many columns) table and it is becoming
> unmanageable (I can't get the whole of it on screen, some queries appear to
> exceed the maximum string length etc.)
>
> How do you 'split' a long table without adding excessive redundency?  Is it
> OK to just cut the table up and use the same primary key?

Is it possible to normalize your table, and build up a set of relations
between the tables?  If not, you may want to break your tables down into
years (I do this for some data), and just treat each year as a discrete
set.  You may be able to do a join between views to use the tables as a
single set of data, but then you are right back where you started with
too much data.  How many rows are in this table?

Brett W. McCoy
                                         http://www.lan2wan.com/~bmccoy
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"The Number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected."
   -- The UNIX Programmer's Manual, 2nd Edition, June, 1972