| Saturday 06 December 2003 6:20:09 am 
                                                                 Hi guys, I'm glad I started this thread as there seems to be a real need for better way of handling products. Also, it seems that we are in need of something more than a new datatype or two to handle and manage the more complex product options. I’ve therefore put together a data model to illustrate what I think would be a better way of handling products and their options, and I would love to hear what you guys have to say about it. I'm also interested in product examples that this model might be incapable of handling. [EDIT] - Since the forum is unable to handle the formating of the data model, I've put it in a separate text file availble at http://www.netmaking.no/ezp/datamodel.txt 
ProductContains the name and main price of the product. A product can not be ordered.
 
ProductvariantheadContains one or more variants of a product. A productvariant can be ordered and should also contain information about quantity and what affect (if any) it has on the product main price.
 
OptionOptions can be color, size, blade style, and so on.
 
AlternativeAlternatives are the available alternatives for a specific option. These can be green, red and blue for the option color, and plain and combination for the option blade style.
 
ProductalternativeProductalternatives are the alternatives that apply to the product. For instance, if we have the alternatives red, green, small, large, plain and combination, the productalternatives for a t-shirt might be red, green, small and large while the productalternatives for a knife might be plain and combination.
 
ProductvariantlineThe productvariantlines specify the options that apply to a specific productvariant. For instance, the productvariantlines associated with a productvarianthead will specify that the productvariant is green and large. Furthermore, the productvariantlines are linkes to productalternatives to make sure that only valid alternatives for a product are selected.
 Sincerly, 
Eirik JohansenNetmaking AS
 http://www.netmaking.no/ Sincerely,
 Eirik Alfstad Johansen
 http://www.netmaking.no/
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