How many fields is 'too many' in a table?

database database-design database-normalization
franzferdinand picture franzferdinand · Oct 21, 2008 · Viewed 17k times · Source

I have a coworker who is planning a database for a new app that will have several tables with over 30 fields each. Is this excessive? Maybe I'm just not enterprisey enough to understand.

Edit: Also, a lot of the fields are option-type sort of things (like on a request form, would you like your widget to be yellow or green, he has a field for 'colour' with an enum). It's quite likely that these will be added to or removed over time. I haven't really done database design and try to stay away from it myself, so maybe I'm being completely stupid, but surely there's a better way of doing this??

Answer

Chris Missal picture Chris Missal · Oct 21, 2008

The most obvious sign a table requires normalization that I've seen is fields ending with integers: CouponCode1, CouponCode2, CouponCode3.. you get the point. There will be exceptions to the rule as always though.

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