[DJ RRebel]

Thanks CarCdr ... you info helped me alot. I just really wished you had your forum listed so I could check it out ... lol.

Anyhow, yeah, the 'edit'/search complications I thought of while in bed last night ... lol.

That being said, I think based on what you said, I'd probably be better with seperate tables based on storage. I already have 32,000 threads, and I don't see these reviews ever reaching anything more than 5% to 10% of the total reviews. However, just adding the columns would be adding significant size to the threads table, as I'd need to add all the initial remix information datafields, as well multiple occurances of the download datafields to leave room for the posibility of 3 or 4 or more download links. I think the fact I almost definately need a seperate download data table to enable a many to one relationship between download data and reviews is the big difference between your and mine. I kinda overlooked this a bit when I first developed the idea. Also won't make me scared to add new datafields found to be important for reviews.

You modularize idea is going to save me tons of useless clutter !!! lol

Anyhow, do you have any advice on which way to relate the tables, (6 A or B, 7 A, B or C) ?


Would I be correct in assuming it would be best to put the relational linking data field in the table with the much smaller number of rows (a thread_id column in the new REVIEW table)? Or does the fact calling up each thread would force a search through all that smaller table to find the corresponding review row make it less efficient when instead having a review_id relational linking data field in the original THREAD table would target the proper review table row right away?


Same holds true for the dowload data subset table. Since it's many to one Is it more efficient to put the review_id (or thread_id, not sure which would be better) info field in the Download table, which would mean each review would have to search all downloads? or is it better to pay the price of size but have a download_id array that imidiately tells the review what the download rows are (if any)?


This sort of theory is the last lesson I really need before being comfortable with all of this ... I'm a little scared of hacking existing forum .php pages because I know I'll have to reinstall each hack after each complete upgrade, but so long as I stick to hacks that have a lot of benefit to my community, I think it's worth it. As you can see if you've visited my site's forum, I don't really have much of a problem with modifying templates anymore !!! lol

http://www.homeofchat.com/vB/


Anyhow, thanks tons CarCdr for confirming that I'm at least going in the right direction ... lol

And thanks to anyone else who has the time to respond to my additional table theory questions or even add more comments/opinions on my original post !!!