Advance Query with Join - sql

Question

I'm trying to convert a product table that contains all the detail of the product into separate tables in SQL. I've got everything done except for duplicated descriptor details.
The problem I am having all the products have size/color/style/other that many other products contain. I want to only have one size or color descriptor for all the items and reuse the "ID" for all the product which I believe is a Parent key to the Product ID which is a ...Foreign Key. The only problem is that every descriptor would have multiple Foreign Keys assigned to it. So I was thinking on the fly just have it skip figuring out a Foreign Parent key for each descriptor and just check to see if that descriptor exist and if it does use its Key for the descriptor.
Data Table
PI Colo Sz OTHER
1 | Blue | 5 | Vintage
2 | Blue | 6 | Vintage
3 | Blac | 5 | Simple
4 | Blac | 6 | Simple
===================================
Its destination table is this
===================================
DI Description
1 | Blue
2 | Blac
3 | 5
4 | 6
6 | Vintage
7 | Simple
=============================
Select Data.Table
Unique.Data.Table.Colo
Unique.Data.Table.Sz
Unique.Data.Table.Other
=======================================
Then the dual part of the questions after we create all the descriptors how to do a new query and assign the product ID to the descriptors.
PI| DI
1 | 1
1 | 3
1 | 4
2 | 1
2 | 3
2 | 4
By figuring out how to do this I should be able to duplicate this pattern for all 300 + columns in the product. Some of these fields are 60+ characters large so its going to save a ton of space.
Do I use a Array?

Answer 1

Okay, if I understand you correctly, you want all unique attributes converted from columns into rows in a single table (detailstable) that has an id and a description field:
Assuming the schema:
datatable
------------------
PI [PK]
Colo
Sz
OTHER
detailstable
------------------
DI [PK]
Description
You can first get all of the unique attributes into its own table with:
INSERT INTO detailstable (Description)
SELECT
a.description
FROM
(
SELECT DISTINCT Colo AS description
FROM datatable
UNION
SELECT DISTINCT Sz AS description
FROM datatable
UNION
SELECT DISTINCT OTHER AS description
FROM datatable
) a
Then to link up the datatable to the detailstable, I'm assuming you have a cross-reference table defined like:
datadetails
------------------
PI [PK]
DI [PK]
You can then do:
INSERT INTO datadetails (PI, DI)
SELECT
a.PI
b.DI
FROM
datatable a
INNER JOIN
detailstable b ON b.Description IN (a.Colo, a.Sz, a.OTHER)

Answer 2

I reckon you want to split description table for different categories, like - colorDescription, sizeDescription etc.
If that is not practical then I would recommend having an extra column showing an category attribute:
DI Description Category
1 | Blue | Color
2 | Blac | Color
3 | 5 | Size
4 | 6 | Size
6 | Vintage | Other
7 | Simple | Other
And then have primary key in this table as combination of ID and Category column.
This will have less chances for injecting any data errors. It will be also easy to track that down.