Two different tables or just one with bool column?

Posted by Aidas on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Aidas
Published on 2010-03-29T14:14:01Z Indexed on 2010/03/29 14:23 UTC
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We have two tables: OriginalDocument and ProcessedDocument. In the first one we put an original, not processed document. After it's validated and processed (converted to our xml format and parsed), it's put into Document table. Processed document can be valid or invalid. Which makes more sense: have two different tables for valid and invalid documents or just have one with 'Valid' column? Some of the columns (~5-7) are irrelevant for invalid document. Storing both invalid and valid documents would also make Document table filled with 'NULL' columns (if document is invalid, information like document number, receiver can be unknown). What else should we consider and weigh, when making this decision?

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