Re: Array columns vs normalized table

Lee Hachadoorian wrote:
> I work with state labor data which is reported to us in the form
>
> industry, year, quarter1, quarter2, quarter3, quarter4
>
> where each quarter represents an employment count. Obviously, this can
> be normalized to
>
> industry, year, quarter, employment
>
> Can anyone comment on, or point to me to an article or discussion
> regarding, why one would use an array column instead of normalizing
> the data? That is, would there be any benefit to storing it as
>
> industry int, year smallint, employment int[ ]
>
> where the last column would be a four element array with data for the
> four quarters.
>
> Thanks,
> --Lee
>
> --
> Lee Hachadoorian
> PhD Student, Geography
> Program in Earth & Environmental Sciences
> CUNY Graduate Center

If you want to do that, I'd recommend:
industry int,
year smallint,
emp_q1 int,
emp_q2 int,
emp_q3 int,
emp_q4 int

That way it is more clear, easier to query, uses less space and you wont
end up with employment data for the 5th quarter or something odd like that.

Arrays are great for working with your data during the query process.
But you should generally avoid using them to store your data on disk.

Scott