Hi people,

Kind of new to designing databases and would like some help on the following.

I have a database with 2 sections, services and styles.

section_id, section_name
-----------------------------
1, services
2, styles

I have another table with a list of subsections for each main section linked using the section_id.
(sub_section_id, sub_section_name, section_id)

In my products table i have a list of products.
(product_id, product_name, product_description, product_image)

Here is my problem, each product falls under multiple subsections...for example,

A product might fall under the subsection dark and also under the subsection minimal, so when the user clicks on either of these links on the page, the product is then returned under that subsection.

How would i go about setting something like that up in the database, being new to this im a little confused.

Thanks

so have a table which allows multiple sections for a single prodcut (often called an intersection tabel, I tend to call 'em xref tables becuase the cross reference other tables)

eg
intersectiontable (lets be dull and call it ProductSections)
product 'fk to product table
Section 'fk to sections table

as a wrinkle on this design you can create a tree structure in your section table by identifying a parent section
...ferinstance
say you were modelling a food shop, you may have categories of produce.
ID Name parent ID
01 Produce
02 Fruit 01
10 Vegetable 01
90 Citrus 02
80 Oranges 90
75 Manadarin 80
76 Blood Oranges 80
..and so on

that would allow your users to drill down product/categories (till they find the catgories they want), and it also allows you to show similar categories (eg if they select 'mandarins' you could suggest other citrus fruits on the same level, and the level above)

if you allow users to say specify mulitple attributes then you will be able to query the db requesting any item which has the followign attributes. obviously that wouldn't work for my produce example above as an orange is an orange, a citrus fruit, a fruit. but its not an orange and a lemon at the same time.