I have a project down the road where I need to store Graph data in a relational database. I wanted to see what other people are doing in terms of table structure in a database to store graph data from various tests. The graphs could have a variable number of plots and also a variable number of points (say up to 1k pts) in each plot. Based on my limited experience with database design I was going to make 3 tables in the dB:
Table 1 (PlotData)
col 1 = PlotDataID, autonumber (primary key) integer
col 2 = PlotID_fk, (foreign key) integer
col 3 = PlotDataX, real
col 4 = PlotDataY, real
Table 2 (Plots)
col 1 = PlotID_pk, autonumber (primary key)
col 2 = GraphID_fk, (foreign key) integer
col (n) = (plot info ....)
col (n+1) = (other plot info)
Table 3 (Graphs)
col1 = GraphID_pk
col(n) = ....(graph info)
col(n+1) =...(some other graph info)
Then JOIN them altogether on the primary keys to retrieve the data. My worry is PlotData table will get huge and take a long time to query. Has anyone gone down this road before? Is there a better way?
Thanks in advance