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  • database design - empty fields

    - by imanc
    Hey, I am currently debating an issue with a guy on my dev team. He believes that empty fields are bad news. For instance, if we have a customer details table that stores data for customers from different countries, and each country has a slightly different address configuration - plus 1-2 extra fields, e.g. French customer details may also store details for entry code, and floor/level plus title fields (madamme, etc.). South Africa would have a security number. And so on. Given that we're talking about minor variances my idea is to put all of the fields into the table and use what is needed on each form. My colleague believes we should have a separate table with extra data. E.g. customer_info_fr. But this seams to totally defeat the purpose of a combined table in the first place. His argument is that empty fields / columns is bad - but I'm struggling to find justification in terms of database design principles for or against this argument and preferred solutions. Another option is a separate mini EAV table that stores extra data with parent_id, key, val fields. Or to serialise extra data into an extra_data column in the main customer_data table. I think I am confused because what I'm discussing is not covered by 3NF which is what I would typically use as a reference for how to structure data. So my question specifically: - if you have slight variances in data for each record (1-2 different fields for instance) what is the best way to proceed?

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  • database table design

    - by e.b.white
    I design the tables as below for the system which looks like a package delivering system For example, after user received the package, postman should record in system, and the state(history table) is "delivered",and operator is this postman, the current state(state table) is of course "delivered" history table: +---------------+--------------------------+ | Field | Desc | +---------------+--------------------------+ | id | PRIMARY KEY | +---------------+--------------------------+ | package_id | package_tacking_id | +---------------+--------------------------+ | state | package_state | +---------------+--------------------------+ | operators | operators | +---------------+--------------------------+ | create_time| create_time | +---------------+--------------------------+ state table: +---------------+--------------------------+ | Field | Desc | +---------------+--------------------------+ | id | PRIMARY KEY | +---------------+--------------------------+ | package_id | package_tacking_id | +---------------+--------------------------+ | state | latest_package_state | +---------------+--------------------------+ Above is just the basic information to record, some other information( like invoice, destination,...) should be recored as well. But there are different service types like s1 and s2, for s1 it is not needed to record invoice but s1 need, and maybe s1 need some other information to record (like the tel of end user). After all, at delivering way stations there are additional information to record, and for different service type the information type is different. My question is: 1. For different service type, shall I need to declare different tables(option A) or just one big table which can record all information for all types(option B)? 2. If option A, since the basic information above is MUST, how can prevent from declaring there duplicate fields in different tables?

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  • Design Pattern for Changing Object

    - by user210757
    Is there a Design Pattern for supporting different permutations object? Version 1 public class myOjbect { public string field1 { get; set; } /* requirements: max length 20 */ public int field2 { get; set; } . . . public decimal field200 { get; set; } } Version 2 public class myObject { public string field1 { get; set; } /* requirements: max length 40 */ public int field2 { get; set; } . . . public double field200 { get; set; } /* changed data types */ . . ./* 10 new properties */ public double field210 { get; set; } } of course I could just have separate objects, but thought there might be a good pattern for this sort of thing.

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  • Design pattern for loading multiple message types

    - by lukem00
    As I was looking through SO I came across a question about handling multiple message types. My concern is - how do I load such a message in a neat way? I decided to have a separate class with a method which loads one message each time it's invoked. This method should create a new instance of a concrete message type (say AlphaMessage, BetaMessage, GammaMessage, etc.) and return it as a Message. class MessageLoader { public Message Load() { // ... } } The code inside the method is something which looks really awful to me and I would very much like to refactor it/get rid of it: Message msg = Message.Load(...); // load yourself from whatever source if (msg.Type == MessageType.Alpha) return new AlphaMessage(msg); if (msg.Type == MessageType.Beta) return new BetaMessage(msg); // ... In fact, if the whole design looks just too messy and you guys have a better solution, I'm ready to restructure the whole thing. If my description is too chaotic, please let me know what it's missing and I shall edit the question. Thank you all.

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  • Design Advice Needed For Synonyms Database

    - by James J
    I'm planning to put together a database that can be used to query synonyms of words. The database will end up huge, so the idea is to keep things running fast. I've been thinking about how to do this, but my database design skills are not up to scratch these days. My initial idea was to have each word stored in one table, and then another table with a 1 to many relationship where each word can be linked to another word and that table can be queried. The application I'm developing allows users to highlight a word, and then type in, or select some synonyms from the database for that word. The application learns from the user input so if someone highlights "car" and types in "motor" the database would be updated to link the relationship if it don't exist already. What I don't want to happen is for a user to type in the word "shop" and link it to the word car. So I'm thinking I will need to add some sort of weight to each relationship. Eventually the synonyms the users enter will be used so they can auto select common synonyms used with a certain word. The lower weight words will not be displayed so shop could never be a synonym of car unless it had a very high weight, and chances are nobody is going to do that. Does the above sound right? Can you offer any suggestions or improvements?

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  • Policy based design and defaults.

    - by Noah Roberts
    Hard to come up with a good title for this question. What I really need is to be able to provide template parameters with different number of arguments in place of a single parameter. Doesn't make a lot of sense so I'll go over the reason: template < typename T, template <typename,typename> class Policy = default_policy > struct policy_based : Policy<T, policy_based<T,Policy> > { // inherits R Policy::fun(arg0, arg1, arg2,...,argn) }; // normal use: policy_base<type_a> instance; // abnormal use: template < typename PolicyBased > // No T since T is always the same when you use this struct custom_policy {}; policy_base<type_b,custom_policy> instance; The deal is that for many abnormal uses the Policy will be based on one single type T, and can't really be parameterized on T so it makes no sense to take T as a parameter. For other uses, including the default, a Policy can make sense with any T. I have a couple ideas but none of them are really favorites. I thought that I had a better answer--using composition instead of policies--but then I realized I have this case where fun() actually needs extra information that the class itself won't have. This is like the third time I've refactored this silly construct and I've got quite a few custom versions of it around that I'm trying to consolidate. I'd like to get something nailed down this time rather than just fish around and hope it works this time. So I'm just fishing for ideas right now hoping that someone has something I'll be so impressed by that I'll switch deities. Anyone have a good idea? Edit: You might be asking yourself why I don't just retrieve T from the definition of policy based in the template for default_policy. The reason is that default_policy is actually specialized for some types T. Since asking the question I have come up with something that may be what I need, which will follow, but I could still use some other ideas. template < typename T > struct default_policy; template < typename T, template < typename > class Policy = default_policy > struct test : Policy<test<T,Policy>> {}; template < typename T > struct default_policy< test<T, default_policy> > { void f() {} }; template < > struct default_policy< test<int, default_policy> > { void f(int) {} }; Edit: Still messing with it. I wasn't too fond of the above since it makes default_policy permanently coupled with "test" and so couldn't be reused in some other method, such as with multiple templates as suggested below. It also doesn't scale at all and requires a list of parameters at least as long as "test" has. Tried a few different approaches that failed until I found another that seems to work so far: template < typename T > struct default_policy; template < typename T, template < typename > class Policy = default_policy > struct test : Policy<test<T,Policy>> {}; template < typename PolicyBased > struct fetch_t; template < typename PolicyBased, typename T > struct default_policy_base; template < typename PolicyBased > struct default_policy : default_policy_base<PolicyBased, typename fetch_t<PolicyBased>::type> {}; template < typename T, template < typename > class Policy > struct fetch_t< test<T,Policy> > { typedef T type; }; template < typename PolicyBased, typename T > struct default_policy_base { void f() {} }; template < typename PolicyBased > struct default_policy_base<PolicyBased,int> { void f(int) {} };

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  • Database entries existence depends on time / boolean value of a field changed automatically

    - by lisak
    Hey, I have this situation here. An auction system listing orders that are "active" (their deadline didn't occur yet) There is a lot of orders so it is better to have a field "active" instead of listing them based on time queries I'm not a database expert, just a user. What is the best way to implement this scenario ? Do I have to manually check the "deadLine" field and change "active" status every once in a while ? Is Mysql able to change the field automatically ? How demanding are queries of type "select orders where "deadline" has passed " Do I need to use TIMESTAMP (long data type of number of milisecond since UTC epoch time or DATETIME for the queries to the database to be more efficient ? Finally I have to move old order entries to a different backup table .

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  • Objective-C wrapper API design methodology

    - by Wade Williams
    I know there's no one answer to this question, but I'd like to get people's thoughts on how they would approach the situation. I'm writing an Objective-C wrapper to a C library. My goals are: 1) The wrapper use Objective-C objects. For example, if the C API defines a parameter such as char *name, the Objective-C API should use name:(NSString *). 2) The client using the Objective-C wrapper should not have to have knowledge of the inner-workings of the C library. Speed is not really any issue. That's all easy with simple parameters. It's certainly no problem to take in an NSString and convert it to a C string to pass it to the C library. My indecision comes in when complex structures are involved. Let's say you have: struct flow { long direction; long speed; long disruption; long start; long stop; } flow_t; And then your C API call is: void setFlows(flow_t inFlows[4]); So, some of the choices are: 1) expose the flow_t structure to the client and have the Objective-C API take an array of those structures 2) build an NSArray of four NSDictionaries containing the properties and pass that as a parameter 3) create an NSArray of four "Flow" objects containing the structure's properties and pass that as a parameter My analysis of the approaches: Approach 1: Easiest. However, it doesn't meet the design goals Approach 2: For some reason, this seems to me to be the most "Objective-C" way of doing it. However, each element of the NSDictionary would have to be wrapped in an NSNumber. Now it seems like we're doing an awful lot just to pass the equivalent of a struct. Approach 3: Seems the cleanest to me from an object-oriented standpoint and the extra encapsulation could come in handy later. However, like #2, it now seems like we're doing an awful lot (creating an array, creating and initializing objects) just to pass a struct. So, the question is, how would you approach this situation? Are there other choices I'm not considering? Are there additional advantages or disadvantages to the approaches I've presented that I'm not considering?

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  • C# Design Questions

    - by guazz
    How to approach unit testing of private methods? I have a class that loads Employee data into a database. Here is a sample: public class EmployeeFacade { public Employees EmployeeRepository = new Employees(); public TaxDatas TaxRepository = new TaxDatas(); public Accounts AccountRepository = new Accounts(); //and so on for about 20 more repositories etc. public bool LoadAllEmployeeData(Employee employee) { if (employee == null) throw new Exception("..."); EmployeeRepository emps = new EmployeeRepository(); bool exists = emps.FetchExisting(emps.Id); if (!exists) { emps.AddNew(); } try { emps.Id = employee.Id; emps.Name = employee.EmployeeDetails.PersonalDetails.Active.Names.FirstName; emps.SomeOtherAttribute; } catch() {} try { emps.Save(); } catch(){} try { LoadorUpdateTaxData(employee.TaxData); } catch() {} try { LoadorUpdateAccountData(employee.AccountData); } catch() {} ... etc. for about 20 more other employee objects } private bool LoadorUpdateTaxData(employeeId, TaxData taxData) { if (taxData == null) throw new Exception("..."); ...same format as above but using AccountRepository } private bool LoadorUpdateAccountData(employee.TaxData) { ...same format as above but using TaxRepository } } I am writing an application to take serialised objects(e.g. Employee above) and load the data to the database. I have a few design question that I would like opinions on: A - I am calling this class "EmployeeFacade" because I am (attempting?) to use the facade pattern. Is it good practace to name the pattern on the class name? B - Is it good to call the concrete entities of my DAL layer classes "Repositories" e.g. "EmployeeRepository" ? C - Is using the repositories in this way sensible or should I create a method on the repository itself to take, say, the Employee and then load the data from there e.g. EmployeeRepository.LoadAllEmployeeData(Employee employee)? I am aim for cohesive class and but this will requrie the repository to have knowledge of the Employee object which may not be good? D - Is there any nice way around of not having to check if an object is null at the begining of each method? E - I have a EmployeeRepository, TaxRepository, AccountRepository declared as public for unit testing purpose. These are really private enities but I need to be able to substitute these with stubs so that the won't write to my database(I overload the save() method to do nothing). Is there anyway around this or do I have to expose them? F - How can I test the private methods - or is this done (something tells me it's not)? G- "emps.Name = employee.EmployeeDetails.PersonalDetails.Active.Names.FirstName;" this breaks the Law of Demeter but how do I adjust my objects to abide by the law?

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  • Design question for WinForms (C#) app, using Entity Framework

    - by cdotlister
    I am planning on writing a small home budget application for myself, as a learning excercise. I have built my database (SQL Server), and written a small console application to interact with it, and test out scenarios on my database. Once I am happy, my next step would be to start building the application - but I am already wondering what the best/standard design would be. I am palnning on using Entity Framework for handling my database entities... then linq to sql/objects for getting the data, all running under a WinForms (for now) application. My plan (I've never used EF... and most of my development background is Web apps) is to have my database... with Entity Framework in it's own project.. which has the connection to the database. This project would expose methods such as 'GetAccount()', 'GetAccount(int accountId)' etc. I'd then have a service project that references my EF project. And on top of that, my GUI project, which makes the calls to my service project. But I am stuck. Lets say I have a screen that displays a list of Account types (Debit, Credit, Loan...). Once I have selected one, the next drop down shows a list of accounts I have that suite that account type. So, my OnChange event on my DropDown on the account type control will make a call to the serviceLayer project, 'GetAccountTypes()', and I would expect back a List< of Account Types. However, the AccountType object ... what is that? That can't be the AccountType object from my EF project, as my GUI project doesn't have reference to it. Would I have to have some sort of Shared Library, shared between my GUI and my Service project, with a custom built AccountType object? The GUI can then expect back a list of these. So my service layer would have a method: public List<AccountType> GetAccountTypes() That would then make a call to a custom method in my EF project, which would probably be the same as the above method, except, it returns an list of EF.Data.AccountType (The Entity Framework generated Account Type object). The method would then have the linq code to get the data as I want it. Then my service layer will get that object, and transform it unto my custom AccountType object, and return it to the GUI. Does that sound at all like a good plan?

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  • Daylight saving time - do and don'ts

    - by Oded
    I am hoping to make this question and the answers to it the definitive guide to dealing with daylight saving time, in particular for dealing with the actual change overs. Many systems are dependent on keeping accurate time, the problem is with changes to time due to daylight savings - moving the clock forward or backwards. For instance, one has business rules in an order taking system that depend on the time of the order - if the clock changes, the rules might not be as clear. How should the time of the order be persisted? There is of course an endless number of scenarios - this one is simply an illustrative one. How have you dealt with the daylight saving issue? What assumptions are part of your solution? (looking for context here) As important, if not more so: What did you try that did not work? Why did it not work? I would be interested in programming, OS, data persistence and other pertinent aspects of the issue. General answers are great, but I would also like to see details especially if they are only available on one platform.

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  • What is considered a long execution time?

    - by stjowa
    I am trying to figure out just how "efficient" my server-side code is. Using start and end microtime(true) values, I am able to calculate the time it took my script to run. I am getting times from .3 - .5 seconds. These scripts do a number of database queries to return different values to the user. What is considered an efficient execution time for PHP scripts that will be run online for a website? Note: I know it depends on exactly what is being done, but just consider this a standard script that reads from a database and returns values to the user. Also, I look at Google and see them search the internet in .15 seconds and I feel like my script is crap. Thanks.

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  • select time (HH:MM:SS.mmm) in javascript

    - by acidzombie24
    I would like the user to select the time in javascript and to avoid selecting the wrong time. How should i do it? Is there some kind of javascript or jquery widget? or should i show the format and allow users to write it in (and i guess check it with regex)? i think these should be valid 1 (1s) 1:5 (1m 5s) 1.5 (1s, 500 milliseconds. not to be confused by the above) 1:2:02 (1h, 2m, 2 seconds) 1:2:2 (1h, 2m, 2 seconds) 1:2:20 (1h, 2m, 20 seconds) I dont want the user to be confused. How can i avoid this?

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  • What is the best server side solution for a real-time GPS tracking system

    - by Ayman
    Well, I tried to ask this question as a comment on this question, but I thought that maybe no one will notice it, so I decided to ask it as a separate one. The question is about how to do real-time GPS tracking system things; if we have the following scenario: Rather than connecting a GPS receiver to a PC, the user will have a mobile device with an integrated GPS receiver. Location data will be sent over mobile network using GPRS data connection to a server side. The data will be processed and a KML path file will be created and updated on time intervals and used to track the user using Google Earth. The question is: what is the best method to accomplish this scenario for the server side; is it a web service, a web application, a windows service, a windows application or what exactly? Taking into account that the system will serve a number of users simultaneously, and that more users may use the system in the future(scalability issues). Thank you in advance and I highly appreciate any help :)

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  • difficulty based time estimation software

    - by Frankie
    Some months ago I found a project-management / time-estimation software that would ask you to sort out your tasks in terms of difficulty (1, 2 or 3) and would then estimate the time you would take to deploy. The system would auto-adapt as you were working. I've forgot the software name. For the past days I've been digging emails and searching Google with no results. Can anyone pin the software name by my description? Its not http://www.fogcreek.com (though I've found it to be a great piece of software. Thank you in advance.

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  • Design pattern question: encapsulation or inheritance

    - by Matt
    Hey all, I have a question I have been toiling over for quite a while. I am building a templating engine with two main classes Template.php and Tag.php, with a bunch of extension classes like Img.php and String.php. The program works like this: A Template object creates a Tag objects. Each tag object determines which extension class (img, string, etc.) to implement. The point of the Tag class is to provide helper functions for each extension class such as wrap('div'), addClass('slideshow'), etc. Each Img or String class is used to render code specific to what is required, so $Img->render() would give something like <img src='blah.jpg' /> My Question is: Should I encapsulate all extension functionality within the Tag object like so: Tag.php function __construct($namespace, $args) { // Sort out namespace to determine which extension to call $this->extension = new $namespace($this); // Pass in Tag object so it can be used within extension return $this; // Tag object } function render() { return $this->extension->render(); } Img.php function __construct(Tag $T) { $args = $T->getArgs(); $T->addClass('img'); } function render() { return '<img src="blah.jpg" />'; } Usage: $T = new Tag("img", array(...); $T->render(); .... or should I create more of an inheritance structure because "Img is a Tag" Tag.php public static create($namespace, $args) { // Sort out namespace to determine which extension to call return new $namespace($args); } Img.php class Img extends Tag { function __construct($args) { // Determine namespace then call create tag $T = parent::__construct($namespace, $args); } function render() { return '<img src="blah.jpg" />'; } } Usage: $Img = Tag::create('img', array(...)); $Img->render(); One thing I do need is a common interface for creating custom tags, ie I can instantiate Img(...) then instantiate String(...), I do need to instantiate each extension using Tag. I know this is somewhat vague of a question, I'm hoping some of you have dealt with this in the past and can foresee certain issues with choosing each design pattern. If you have any other suggestions I would love to hear them. Thanks! Matt Mueller

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  • iPhone first time application ran and config files

    - by VansFannel
    Hello. I have two question: I'm developing an iPhone application and I want to know when it is the first time the application is executed. I want to check some extended permissions from facebook the first time. How can I know that? (first question) Another way to solved this problem is to store the extended permissions granted in some configuration file. I don't want to make visible this file through app settings icon. How can I add some configuration files to store these permissions granted? (second question) Thanks

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  • Haskell compile time function calculation

    - by egon
    I would like to precalculate values for a function at compile-time. Example (real function is more complex, didn't try compiling): base = 10 mymodulus n = n `mod` base -- or substitute with a function that takes -- too much to compute at runtime printmodules 0 = [mymodulus 0] printmodules z = (mymodulus z):(printmodules (z-1)) main = printmodules 64 I know that mymodulus n will be called only with n < 64 and I would like to precalculate mymodulus for n values of 0..64 at compile time. The reason is that mymodulus would be really expensive and will be reused multiple times.

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  • JavaScript Resource Management Design Pattern

    - by Adam
    As a web developer, a common problem I find myself tackling is waiting for something to load before doing something else. In particular, I often hide (using either display: none; or visibility: hidden; depending on the situation) elements while waiting for a background image or a CSS file to load. Consider this example from Last.FM. They overlay a semi-transparant PNG over each album art image so that it looks like it's inside a jewel-case. They let it load when it loads, so depending on your internet speed, you may see the art image by itself (without the overlay) temporarily. In this case, the album art looks fine without the jewel-case effect. But in similar situations, I have found that I don't want the user to see the site's design mangled as resources incrementally load. So, in rare cases I have hidden everything from the user until the whole kit and kaboodle has loaded. But this is often a pain to write out, and may force the user to wait for a pretty long time to see anything (besides "loading..." text). I can think of (and have used on occasion) some obvious solutions/compromises: Use some inline CSS so that as certain parts of the DOM load and render, they will immediately have the correct size/position/etc. Immediately render the navigation part of the site, so that if the user wanted to use the current page purely to get somewhere else, they don't have to wait for the rest to load. Load pixelated images first as placeholders for layout while lazy-loading higher quality images as replacements. Something quirky like using a cute animated gif to distract the user during a "loading..." phase. Show useful information as a reference while loading the full UI. (Something akin to Gmail Inbox Preview, etc.) (Sorry if my question was basically just asked and answered...) Despite all of these ideas, I still find myself hoping there are better ways of doing some of these things. So I guess what I'm looking for is some inspiration and/or any creative ways of dealing with this problem that you guys may have seen out in the wild.

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  • c++ quick sort running time

    - by chnet
    I have a question about quick sort algorithm. I implement quick sort algorithm and play it. The elements in initial unsorted array are random numbers chosen from certain range. I find the range of random number effects the running time. For example, the running time for 1, 000, 000 random number chosen from the range (1 - 2000) takes 40 seconds. While it takes 9 seconds if the 1,000,000 number chosen from the range (1 - 10,000). But I do not know how to explain it. In class, we talk about the pivot value can effect the depth of recursion tree. For my implementation, the last value of the array is chosen as pivot value. I do not use randomized scheme to select pivot value. int partition( vector<int> &vec, int p, int r) { int x = vec[r]; int i = (p-1); int j = p; while(1) { if (vec[j] <= x){ i = (i+1); int temp = vec[j]; vec[j] = vec[i]; vec[i] = temp; } j=j+1; if (j==r) break; } int temp = vec[i+1]; vec[i+1] = vec[r]; vec[r] = temp; return i+1; } void quicksort ( vector<int> &vec, int p, int r) { if (p<r){ int q = partition(vec, p, r); quicksort(vec, p, q-1); quicksort(vec, q+1, r); } } void random_generator(int num, int * array) { srand((unsigned)time(0)); int random_integer; for(int index=0; index< num; index++){ random_integer = (rand()%10000)+1; *(array+index) = random_integer; } } int main() { int array_size = 1000000; int input_array[array_size]; random_generator(array_size, input_array); vector<int> vec(input_array, input_array+array_size); clock_t t1, t2; t1 = clock(); quicksort(vec, 0, (array_size - 1)); // call quick sort int length = vec.size(); t2 = clock(); float diff = ((float)t2 - (float)t1); cout << diff << endl; cout << diff/CLOCKS_PER_SEC <<endl; }

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  • SQLAlchemy unsupported type error - and table design issues?

    - by Az
    Hi there, back again with some more SQLAlchemy shenanigans. Let me step through this. My table is now set up as so: engine = create_engine('sqlite:///:memory:', echo=False) metadata = MetaData() students_table = Table('studs', metadata, Column('sid', Integer, primary_key=True), Column('name', String), Column('preferences', Integer), Column('allocated_rank', Integer), Column('allocated_project', Integer) ) metadata.create_all(engine) mapper(Student, students_table) Fairly simple, and for the most part I've been enjoying the ability to query almost any bit of information I want provided I avoid the error cases below. The class it is mapped from is: class Student(object): def __init__(self, sid, name): self.sid = sid self.name = name self.preferences = collections.defaultdict(set) self.allocated_project = None self.allocated_rank = 0 def __repr__(self): return str(self) def __str__(self): return "%s %s" %(self.sid, self.name) Explanation: preferences is basically a set of all the projects the student would prefer to be assigned. When the allocation algorithm kicks in, a student's allocated_project emerges from this preference set. Now if I try to do this: for student in students.itervalues(): session.add(student) session.commit() It throws two errors, one for the allocated_project column (seen below) and a similar error for the preferences column: sqlalchemy.exc.InterfaceError: (InterfaceError) Error binding parameter 4 - probably unsupported type. u'INSERT INTO studs (sid, name, allocated_rank, allocated_project) VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?)' [1101, 'Muffett,M.', 1, 888 Human-spider relationships (Supervisor id: 123)] If I go back into my code I find that, when I'm copying the preferences from the given text files, it actually refers to the Project class which is mapped to a dictionary, using the unique project id's (pid) as keys. Thus, as I iterate through each student via their rank and to the preferences set, it adds not a project id, but the reference to the project id from the projects dictionary. students[sid].preferences[int(rank)].add(projects[int(pid)]) Now this is very useful to me since I can find out all I want to about a student's preferred projects without having to run another check to pull up information about the project id. The form you see in the error has the object print information passed as: return "%s %s (Supervisor id: %s)" %(self.proj_id, self.proj_name, self.proj_sup) My questions are: I'm trying to store an object in a database field aren't I? Would the correct way then, be copying the project information (project id, name, etc) into its own table, referenced by the unique project id? That way I can just have the project id field for one of the student tables just be an integer id and when I need more information, just join the tables? So and so forth for other tables? If the above makes sense, then how does one maintain the relationship with a column of information in one table which is a key index on another table? Does this boil down into a database design problem? Are there any other elegant ways of accomplishing this? Apologies if this is a very long-winded question. It's rather crucial for me to solve this, so I've tried to explain as much as I can, whilst attempting to show that I'm trying (key word here sadly) to understand what could be going wrong.

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