I have a table Persons with columns ID, NAME and SEX. The problem is that in my db i also have to represent different details for male and female persons. Therefore i have two tables named MaleDetails and FemaleDetails with columns ID, Detail1, Detail2, Detail3 etc. What is the best way to create Master-Detail relationship between the tables Persons, MaleDetails, FemaleDetails?

Google "sub type super type".

As a follow up, I'm dying to know what male & female specific details you keep, and do you need someone to help verify (half of) them?

pootle flump ur codings are working excelent.

In fact this is a goody:
www.cbe.wwu.edu/misclasses/mis421s04/presentations/supersubtype.ppt

pootle flump ur codings are working excelent.

Unless there are an enormous number of attributes you need to track that are exclusive to one gender, just put them all in one table and accept that some will have NULL values.

ok. i understand the concept. however look at this table: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...us,SQL.80).gif. the database design does not forbid you to put an id of a vehicle the type of which is set to car into the table Trucks. is this a good way to design a db?

David Portas' Blog : Distributed Keys and Disjoint Subtypes

This can be enforced with either composite foreign keys or indexed views. But again, I'd just put it all in one table if possible.