Should User and Address be in separate tables?

user_696406 0
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Currently my users table has the below fields

  • Username
  • Password
  • Name
  • Surname
  • City
  • Address
  • Country
  • Region
  • TelNo
  • MobNo
  • Email
  • MembershipExpiry
  • NoOfMembers
  • DOB
  • Gender
  • Blocked
  • UserAttempts
  • BlockTime
  • Disabled

    • I'm not sure if I should put the address fields in another table. I have heard that I will be breaking 3NF if I don't although I can't understand why. Can someone please explain?

    relational-database database-design sql-server
    6 Answers

    Just as point that I think might help someone in this question, I once had a situation where I put addresses right in the user/site/company/etc tables because I thought, why would I ever need more than one address for them? Then after we completed everything it was brought to my attention by a different department that we needed the possibility of recording both a shipping address and a billing address.

    The moral of the story is, this is a frequent requirement, so if you think you ever might want to record shipping and billing addresses, or can think of any other type of address you might want to record for a user, go ahead and put it in a separate table.

    In today's age, I think phone numbers are a no brainer as well to be stored in a separate table. Everyone has mobile numbers, home numbers, work numbers, fax numbers, etc., and even if you only plan on asking for one, people will still put two in the field and separate them by a semi-colon (trust me). Just something else to consider in your database design.

    user_12746250

    You should never group two different types of data in a single table, period. The reason is if your application is intended to be used in production, sooner or later different use-cases will come which will need you to higher normalised table structure. My recommendation - Adhere to SOLID principles even in DB design.

    user_158388230
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