Proper way to store requests in Mysql (or any) database

What is the "proper" (most normalized?) way to store requests i开发者_StackOverflown 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:

• If the related field is not always applicable, or may frequently be null.
• If the related field is only needed in rare scenarios and is better described by using a foreign key into a related table of associated attributes.

In your case those above reasons don't apply.

Definitely do 'A'.

If you do B, you'll be creating a new table with the same fields as the other one and that means you're doing something wrong. You're repeating yourself.

I think it's better to store data in main table with specific status. Because it's not necessary to move data between tables if this one is approved and the article will appear on site at the same time. If you don't want to store disapproved articles you should create cron script with will remove unnecessary data or move them to archive table. In this case you will have less loading of your db because you can adjust proper time for removing old articles for example at night.

Regarding problem using approval status in each query: If you are planning to have very popular site with high-load for searching or making list of article you will use standalone server like sphinx or solr(mysql is not good solution for this purposes) and you will put data to these ones with status='Approved'. Using delta indexing helps you to keep your data up-to-date.