Обсуждение: How to split very long tables?

Dear All,

I am using postgreSQL to matain a database of breast cancer patient data.
I have create a hugely long (i.e. many columns) table and it is becoming
unmanageable (I can't get the whole of it on screen, some queries appear to
exceed the maximum string length etc.)

How do you 'split' a long table without adding excessive redundency?  Is it
OK to just cut the table up and use the same primary key?

I would be grateful for any comments/suggestions.

Cheers,

Stuart.

PS.  could you please cc me a copy of your posting(s).


+-------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| Stuart Rison            | Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research |
| Tel. (0171) 878 4041    | Courtauld Building                   |
| Fax. (0171) 878 4040    | 91 Riding House Street               |
+-------------------------+ London, W1P 8BT                      |
| stuart@ludwig.ucl.ac.uk | UNITED KINGDOM.                      |
+-------------------------+--------------------------------------+

On Mon, 6 Jul 1998, Stuart Rison wrote:

> I am using postgreSQL to matain a database of breast cancer patient data.
> I have create a hugely long (i.e. many columns) table and it is becoming
> unmanageable (I can't get the whole of it on screen, some queries appear to
> exceed the maximum string length etc.)
>
> How do you 'split' a long table without adding excessive redundency?  Is it
> OK to just cut the table up and use the same primary key?

Is it possible to normalize your table, and build up a set of relations
between the tables?  If not, you may want to break your tables down into
years (I do this for some data), and just treat each year as a discrete
set.  You may be able to do a join between views to use the tables as a
single set of data, but then you are right back where you started with
too much data.  How many rows are in this table?

Brett W. McCoy
                                         http://www.lan2wan.com/~bmccoy
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