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From: David G. Johnston <[email protected]>
To: Ron Johnson <[email protected]>
Cc: pgsql-general <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Lookup tables
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 2025 08:04:54 -0700
Message-ID: <CAKFQuwYpoUxB8je87ozcajt2L7BrNtN9j9mTfomU6gw=jsKNNg@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CANzqJaC3FeJCSy5EUw9VzunBgG3EK6e9=QzUk9wkF8o1Y5iToA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <[email protected]>
	<CANzqJaC3FeJCSy5EUw9VzunBgG3EK6e9=QzUk9wkF8o1Y5iToA@mail.gmail.com>

On Tuesday, February 4, 2025, Ron Johnson <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 4, 2025 at 9:28 AM Rich Shepard <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> Should lookup tables have a numeric FK column as well as the description
>> column?
>>
>
> Does your lookup table just have one column?  (That's what your question
> seems to imply, but that makes no sense, since the whole point of a lookup
> table is to store some sort of a code in the "child" table instead of the
> whole text of the description.)
>

The point of a lookup table is to provide a unique list of authoritative
values for some purpose.  Kinda like an enum.  But having the label serve
as the unique value is reasonable - we only add surrogates for optimization.

David J.

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