Best Practices for Representing Inheritance in SQL Server Databases
2024-12-17
This article explores best practices for representing inheritance relationships in SQL Server databases. Three common approaches are presented: single table inheritance, concrete table inheritance, and class table inheritance. The advantages and disadvantages of each are detailed. Single table inheritance is simple but has scalability and data integrity issues; concrete table inheritance solves these but suffers from inefficient queries; class table inheritance balances simplicity and efficiency, making it the preferred choice in most scenarios. Alternative approaches using JSON for subtype-specific fields and normalized database design are also discussed.
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