Help - SQL Lookups (Text or Integer)

[epicmove]

Hi Guys,

First off, a big thanks to everyone on the site. I have learnt a lot since first discovering this site a few weeks back.

Problem:

Having understood that it is better to create SQL lookups to queries of tables rather than to the tables directly, I am having trouble understanding what value I should store in my main table, a text value or the ID (number) (of the text value.)

I have an asset table with a field Equipment Type. This field looks at a query of the EquipmentType Table.

Would it better to store the text value "Printer" in the main asset table (in which case I can query the table directly but the field will use up more space (i.e. 25 char)?)

or

Store the Equipment_Type_ID "1" relating to the Printer (will use up less space, but mean any queries querying the actual name would have to include the EquipmentType table).

Any advise would be much appreciated.

My thought was that I should go with the ID as otherwise I will be storing duplicate data. If this is the case, when would a text value be more suitable.

 

[KeithG]

You are correct, the normalized way would be to store the ID.