Storing matrices in a relational database

Question

I am working on a project for a client and going through the initial database design. The project will be a simple web app for tracking processes and their outcomes within a

Answer 1

Video memory, a very simple 2D matrix is stored as follows:

ABCD
EFGH
IJKL

in ram sequentially like an array as

A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L

element x,y can be found at array offset

[y*width+x]

for instance, x=2,y=2 (zero-based) refers to element K.

[y*width+x]=[2*4+2]=10. array element 10 (again zero-based) = K, so you're good.

Storing in a comma-delimited list will let you put a matrix of any size in an nvarchar field. This assumes that you don't need to query individual cells in SQL, but just grab the matrix as a whole and process it client-side.

Your table may look like this:

tbl_matrices
----
id
user_id
matrix nvarchar(max)