Dealing With Large Databases (keyless Entry Remote Example)

When you're working with large databases, the types with thousands of entries

, organization becomes critical. Setting up your database properly can save you a lot of hassle down the road. Take for example a database of keyless entry remotes; with all the different years, makes, and models of cars, factory and aftermarket remotes, button configurations, and so on, you can easily wind up with tens of thousands of entries in your database.

Ideally, you want to cut those down as much as you can. For keyless entry remotes, for example, you'll often find the same remote in use on the same vehicle several years running. Whenever you have multiple entries that might differ only in a single variable, see if you can set that variable up to accept a range of possibilities. This is most valuable when editing; if you have twenty different entries that are all the same except for one variable, you have to make twenty changes to get it up to date, or have other functionality in place or available to do it for you. That sort of functionality can be useful, but it shouldn't be required for minor changes. With keyless entry remotes, for example, you might allocate variables for a minimum and maximum year, rather than a single variable that takes each year individually.

For more complex entries, you can still cut down by seeing which variables constitute a unique entry across certain groups. Setting up a different table for each group of data and then a master table that references each of the others can save you a lot of editing time. For example, keyless entry remotes might have one table that keeps years, makes, and models, with another table containing information about different remote types (FCCID numbers, prices, etc). There are keyless remotes that work across multiple different types of vehicles, and two tables with a few hundred entries each is a lot more manageable than one table with tens of thousands of entries.

Perhaps most important - in any database, but especially larger ones - is proper indexing. You should always have a way to target an entry precisely with a unique id. Keyless entry remotes are an excellent example: you might think that between vehicle year, make, and model, factory or aftermarket designations, FCCID numbers, and part numbers, you have plenty of identifying data. The problem is, not a single one of those variables will be unique to a single product. Updating that kind of database without a clear way to target specific entries would be an absolute nightmare.

Get enough entries in your database, you begin to see the value of detailed organization. A few simple tricks can turn a massive database - such as tens of thousands of keyless entry remotes - into a much simpler, cleaner, easier to maintain list of entries.

by: Dustin Schwerman

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