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Multi-Measure Calculations in Relational Databases

Greg Low describes a common business problem:

But while food wholesale systems will need to deal with quantities like I described in that post, they often have another layer of complexity. Items are often sold by:

  • Quantity
  • Weight
  • Quantity and Weight

This is an interesting look at how the domain can drive what a proper solution looks like. It also seems like a good use case for 6th normal form, with unit quantity and unit weight tables to prevent NULL from cropping up.