Hi, i have a newbie question so your kindness would be much
appreciated!

I have a question relating to orders. For my database i will have a
number of states, ranging from when a customer initially places an
order, to the order being assigned to a customer sales representative,
then a completed state.

Is it better to store a 'state' ie order_pending, order_complete enum
type in a database, or is it better to have seperate tables for
different states (ie pending table, completed table)? I have been
thinking that the state flag idea would be the best of the two, but
expert opinion would be great or perhaps some other recommendations
for my problem?

Many thanks,

Chris

Chris wrote:
If the order may accurately be modelled by the same table all the way
through its life, then the state flag is definitely the best. I would
implement this with codes rather than descriptions, linked to a table
with the corresponding descriptions.

In a large system, you may find that quotations need to be done
separately, since it is often impractical to structure them in the same
way as a proper order.

John

PS. I don't pretend to be an expert, but have used this technique in two
operational projects.