Using a Single Row configuration table in SQL Server database. Bad idea?

Question

In developing a shopping cart application I\'ve found that I needed to save settings and configurations based on the administrator\'s preferences and requirements. This info

Answer 1

I'm not sure a single row is the best implementation for configuration. You might be better off having a row per configuration item with two columns (configName, configValue), although this will require casting all of your values to strings and back.

Regardless, there's no harm in using a single row for global config. The other options for storing it in the DB (global variables) are worse. You could control it by inserting your first configuration row, then disabling inserts on the table to prevent multiple rows.