Database Design for Mere Mortals™: A Hands-On Guide to Relational Database Design, Second Edition

Associating Fields with Each Table

In Chapter 3 you learned that tables are composed of fields. During this stage of the database-design process, you'll assign fields to each table on the final table list using fields from your preliminary field list.

Assigning fields to a table is a relatively easy process: Determine which fields best represent characteristics of the table's subject and assign them to that table. Repeat this procedure for every table on the final table list. If you think you can use a field or set of fields to represent characteristics of more than one table, then assign them accordingly. You'll discover whether you've assigned the appropriate fields to each table later when you go through the process of refining the table ...