Top "Database-design" questions

Database design is the process of specifying the structure and thus the logical aspects of a database.

Best way to store time (hh:mm) in a database

I want to store times in a database table but only need to store the hours and minutes. I know …

sql-server database database-design datetime
Strings as Primary Keys in SQL Database

I am not very familiar with databases and the theories behind how they work. Is it any slower from a …

sql database database-design string primary-key
What are best practices for multi-language database design?

What is the best way to create multi-language database? To create localized table for every table is making design and …

sql database database-design
Is there a good reason I see VARCHAR(255) used so often (as opposed to another length)?

In multiple courses, books, and jobs, I have seen text fields defined as VARCHAR(255) as kind of the default for "…

database database-design types varchar
How to Store Historical Data

Some co-workers and I got into a debate on the best way to store historical data. Currently, for some systems, …

database-design versioning
How to delete from a table where ID is in a list of IDs?

if I have a list of IDs (1,4,6,7) and a db table where I want to delete all records where ID …

sql database-design
Database development mistakes made by application developers

What are common database development mistakes made by application developers?

database database-design
What does ON [PRIMARY] mean?

I'm creating an SQL setup script and I'm using someone else's script as an example. Here's an example of the …

sql sql-server database database-design
What does character set and collation mean exactly?

I can read the MySQL documentation and it's pretty clear. But, how does one decide which character set to use? …

mysql database database-design character-set
MySQL - how to front pad zip code with "0"?

In my MySQL InnoDB database, I have dirty zip code data that I want to clean up. The clean zip …

sql mysql database database-design