How to store meta-data on columns

Question

Let\'s say you\'re collecting insider info on upcoming superhero movie releases and your main Movie table looks something like this:

Table 1

Answer 1

Here's another idea...feel free to punch holes in it :)

Table: Movie
Columns: MovieId|Movie|Director|LeadMale|LeadFemale|Villain

Table: MovieSource
Columns: MovieSourceId|MovieId|MovieRoleId|Source|Journalist

Table: MovieRole
Columns: MovieRoleId|MovieRole
Values: 1|Director, 2|LeadMale, 3|LeadFemale, 4|Villain

What I'm thinking is that the columns in the movie table could be of different types (in your example, they are all strings/varchars, but they could be, say, numerical or date information that also has a source).

The column types for the source data, however, probably wouldn't vary as a function of the column types of the movie data, so you could use more of an EAV system for the source without losing the integrity of your data.

The MovieRole table allows you to explicitly enumerate the roles so you can create a sure linkage between the source and a given cell of the movie table.

-Dan