What is the "proper" (most normalized?) way to store requests in the database? For example, a user submits an article. This article must be reviewed and approved before it is posted to the site.
Which is the more proper way:
A) store it in in the Articles table with an "Approved" field which is either a 0, 1, 2 (denied, approved, pending)
OR
B) Have an ArticleRequests table which has the same fields as Articles, and upon approval, move the row data from ArticleRequests to Articles.
Thanks!
Since every article is going to have an approval status, and each time an article is requested you're very likely going to need to know that status - keep it inline with the table.
Do consider calling the field ApprovalStatus
, though. You may want to add a related table to contain each of the statuses unless they aren't going to change very often (or ever).
EDIT: Reasons to keep fields in related tables are:
null
.In your case those above reasons don't apply.