Rank: ? (2)
Member #: 24361

Hi! I'm trying to build an archive of documents and need some help with the table structure to make the archive searchable.

An example of my doc's are:

Main category: Holiday, Lifecycle, History
Sub Category: New Year, Birth, Independence Day

Some files may be a main category i.e. a general doc on holiday, others could belong to more than one sub category i.e. a main category Calendar would have New Year and Independence Day as well. I also don't know if I could get them all under a main and sub and may need a third level.

I would like to the user to find the file by 1) search box, 2) keyword index, 3) click on main category which will bring to sub, and so on. 4) search through drop down menu. (Did I miss any?)

Am I building this properly with main and sub cats, or is there some other method? And how do I structure the table for sub and sub sub cat? What do I do with a file that doesn't really belong anywhre, make a misc.?

This is what I'm working with:

File
FileID
FileName
FilePages
FileDate
FileAuthor
FileDescription
Classification – essay, article, joke, quote, etc.

Types (Are any of these RETRIEVABLE by SYSTEM CALL?)
FileID
FileType - doc, URL
FileIcon
FileSize

Topic/Category
FileID
FileCategory

Keyword
FileID
FileKeyword

I'd appreciate any help. Thank You

Rank: ? (171)
Member #: 11947

for sub sub category... you could generialize it like this:

CATEGORY
ID
NAME
PARENT ID (or conversly, CHILD ID)

So if PARENT ID is NULL then it's in the root, otherwise it would have childen by searching the PARENT ID...

About misc entries.. umm, thats your call dude.

Also, you might find that having comma delimenated list of keywords in the FILE table might be more managable then having another table.

Classification seems fine, but might be redundent while having keywords.

Lastly you might want a FileDate entry.

Rank: ? (2)
Member #: 24361

Thanks!