Database design question

  • What is the best way to design the following situation:

    CompanyA purchased CompanyB and there needs to be a cross reference table (junction table) that matches the CompanyA products to CompanyB products

    CompanyAProducts table

    ItemNumber, ItemDescription

    Example data

    ItemNumber, ItemDescription, Company

    W100 Wrench A

    H100 Hammer A

    F100 Flashlight A

    CompanyBProducts table

    ItemNumber, ItemDescription

    Example data

    ItemNumber, ItemDescription, Company

    1111W Wrench B

    2222H Hammer B

    4444D Drill B

    There is a junction table that cross references the items

    ProdXref table

    ItemNumberA, ItemNumberB

    W100 1111W

    H100 2222H

    Now, I need to get a listing of all competitors items and create a cross reference to the competitors

    Competitor Table

    ItemNumber, ItemDescription, Company

    WR1 Wrench Lowes

    1234 Wrench Ace

    HAM123 Hammer HomeDepot

    444DRILL Drill Lowes

    FLASH99 FlashLight Ace

    The goal would be to see the following in the final output:

    ItemNumber ItemDescription Company ItemNumber ItemDescription Company ItemNumber ItemDescription Company

    WR1 Wrench Lowes 1111W Wrench B W100 Wrench A

    1234 Wrench Ace 1111W Wrench B W100 Wrench A

    HAM123 HammerHomeDepot 2222H Hammer B H100 Hammer A

    444DRILL Drill Lowes 4444D Drill B

    FLASH99 FlashLight Ace F100 FlashlightA

    ( see attachment for data layout)

    What is the correct way to create another cross reference table that will handle the Flash light and Drill that do not exist in the original cross reference table?

    Or is there a better way to model this data

  • Why don't you add the UPC code to the database and use that to link the various records together?

    Drew

    J. Drew Allen
    Business Intelligence Analyst
    Philadelphia, PA

  • Why not have a single Product table, and have the Company A and Company B tables map to it? Then competitor products could map to it as well. And so on.

    - Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
    Property of The Thread

    "Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon

  • With just a quick look, I'd do something like below. I tried to follow your naming style, naturally change as needed.

    Since we can't guarantee unique ProductNumbers across companies, we'll need to add CompanyCode to the key (it seemed inconsistent to me that the table name was "Products" and the column name was "ItemNumber", it should be consistent).

    Tables: Companies; Products; ProductJunctions

    Companies :: Keyed by ( CompanyCode )

    CompanyCode

    CompanyName

    Products :: Keyed by ( CompanyCode, ProductNumber )

    CompanyCode

    ProductNumber

    ProductDescription

    ProductJunctions :: Keyed by ( CompanyCode1, ProductNumber1, CompanyCode2, ProductNumber2 )

    --Lower company code is alway Code1, so that duplicate entries are not created.

    --[Btw, no, I personally would not create an artificial key here, I prefer natural keys where possible.]

    CompanyCode1

    ProductNumber1

    CompanyCode2

    ProductNumber2

    DateEntered

    SQL DBA,SQL Server MVP(07, 08, 09) "It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear." "Norm", on "Cheers". Also from "Cheers", from "Carla": "You need to know 3 things about Tortelli men: Tortelli men draw women like flies; Tortelli men treat women like flies; Tortelli men's brains are in their flies".

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