So I’ve got five tables: author list, genre list, books, author lookup, genre lookup. author list, genre list, and books each of their own primary keys. The two lookup tables link the three primary tables together.

My biggest problem with this database is that it was created in access when I was just learning about databases, and the person who was teaching me did catch the problem. Or rather, the solution was backwards from what I needed. (The books table had unique rows. The author and genre tables then contained that primary key as a foreign key.) Anyway. It was a mess, and was part of the reason I was having problems, because I was repeating data in multiple places.

So I have my fingers crossed that the lookup table will solve those problems.

Of course, this means I have to design my php and HTML from the ground up AGAIN, but I should be able to use bits and pieces.

And if you have any HTML questions, please ask. I’ve been writing code for webpages for about eleven years, so I’ve gotten pretty decent at HTML and CSS. :)

Actually. I’d make one table for primary key | genre, one table for primary key | author, and then the third table would be for primary key | title | author key | genre key.

It helps to draw out a map, with boxes representing each table and arrows connecting all the keys. Yours probably only needs three tables with actual data (title, author, genre?), and then you could make more tables having the keys related to each other in various ways.

Of course, then you run into the problem of actually putting data into the database, when so much of it is keys. This would be my current issue, and the reason why I’m learning so much about HTML forms and PHP. ;)

What a mess.

I’m getting it sorted out. I’ve now got everything into a single table, with the authors and the genres having tables with their own keys. I just have to figure out whether to put the foreign keys in an array or create extra fields in my tables.

And how the hell to go about doing that.