nschroeder
nschroeder
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- Joined
- Jan 8, 2007
- Messages
- 186
Could someone provide some general guidelines as to determining the most efficient options for field lookups (value list vs table)? And in the case of a table lookup of a text value, at what point would it be more efficient to switch to having your field and lookup value a two-column lookup with the 1st column being an auto-number and the 2nd column the text value, vs just a single-column text value.
The determining factors I'm wondering about would be the text field length, and the number of expected records in the database. For example, if the text field is 10 to 20 characters in your main table as well as the lookup value, and your table is expected to have only a few thousand records, is there any noticable efficiency advantage to making your lookup table two-columned with an auto-number key? Most non-programmers would just use a text value. Programmers want to do things the right way, but at what point is it worth the extra effort?
Thanks for your help.
The determining factors I'm wondering about would be the text field length, and the number of expected records in the database. For example, if the text field is 10 to 20 characters in your main table as well as the lookup value, and your table is expected to have only a few thousand records, is there any noticable efficiency advantage to making your lookup table two-columned with an auto-number key? Most non-programmers would just use a text value. Programmers want to do things the right way, but at what point is it worth the extra effort?
Thanks for your help.