What is the best design for the Artists and Group names section of a music database

PHP
1

What is the best way to design this? Basically, I want to avoid duplicates - but my question is, is it better to use more tables or have a small number of duplicate entries? Consider the following (sorry I can’t space it out or use tabs so I’ve separated the fields with a slash):

FirstName / LastName / Article / GroupName

Paul / McCartney
Paul / McCartney / and / Wings
/ / / Wings
Mike / McCartney /
Paul / Simon
Diana / Ross
Diana / Ross / and the / Supremes
/ / / The / Supremes

I have separated the Articles for sake of sorting and so I don’t have a silly printout of “Supremes (The)”.

So, is it better to have one table for each of FirstName LastName and Article GroupName (together) - in order to maintain the integrity of a single “Paul” entry? That way I could use “unique” in the database - but it seems like an excessive amount of tables. Or should I make one database with the above layout and handle duplicates with an “if” “where” there is a match for more than 1 field (ie if Paul McCartney is entered that’s a duplicate - but you can still enter Paul Simon.)

I would like the form to display the above 4 fields.

Charles

2

your slashes are really confusing

or maybe it’s the “article” column that’s confusing me

how would you classify Stevie Ray Vaughn?

i would use only one table, and only one column for the name

don’t bother splitting into firstname,lastname, etc.

3

[ot]

AWESOME choice of example :D:tup:[/ot]

4

Sorry, about the slashes but this input tool won’t let me do this:

http://whatwant.ca/music.gif

I would put Stevie Ray under first name because the whole point of this is to have a search/sort by artist name and/or group - so you would never want to sort by middle name.

5

sure it will :slight_smile:

[B][COLOR="Red"]FirstName   LastName    Article   GroupName[/COLOR][/B]
Paul        McCartney 
Paul        McCartney   and       Wings
                                  Wings
Mike        McCartney 
Paul        Simon
Diana       Ross
Diana       Ross        and the   Supremes
                        The       Supremes
6

Oops! Sorry, I see it - if you hit “Advanced” - thanks.


[COLOR="DarkSlateBlue"]
FirstName	LastName	Article    GroupName[/COLOR]
Paul 		McCartney 
Paul 		McCartney 	and 	  Wings
					  Wings
Mike		McCartney
Paul		Simon
Diana		Ross
Diana		Ross		and The	  Supremes
				The	  Supremes
Stevie Ray	Vaughan
7

i used bbcode code tags

8

Thanks but there’s no “tab”??? - obviously you did it inside “Code:”

…and back to my question, using one table and one column won’t allow proper sorting and you’ll get that stupid “The” list with a zillion groups starting with “The” who are then in no order at all.

9

no, no tabs, just the right number of spaces :slight_smile:

as for sorting on titles that begin with The, there’s a simple way around this issue – http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=422393

10

Im guessing going the one table one column idea like suggested would be the best idea, because how would you handle the band. ‘The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown’?

There is just to many possibilities that you would have to cover, going down the path you currently are.