Re: Table design issue....

Pierre,

> Ideas? Comments? Suggestions? Am I being crazy?

Yes. To be blunt, you've picked one of the worst possible database
designs for any useful purpose. This is, however, a common mistake as
far too many books and training courses teach how to write SQL without
teaching how to design a database.

What you really want is something like this:

CREATE TABLE tables (
tableid CHAR(1) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY
);

CREATE TABLE attributes (
tableid CHAR(1) NOT NULL REFERENCES tables(tableid),
attributeid CHAR(1) NOT NULL,
CONSTRAINT tab_attr_PK PRIMARY KEY (tableid, attributeid)
);

This makes your select statement possible:
SELECT tableid FROM attributes WHERE attributeid = 'C'
GROUP BY tableid ORDER BY tableid;

If your application requirements are more complicated than this, you
need to either: a) hire a relational design expert, or b) become one.
Books I'd recommend for the latter are Database Design for Mere Mortals
and Practical Issues in Database Design (F. Pascal).

-Josh Berkus

______AGLIO DATABASE SOLUTIONS___________________________
Josh Berkus
Complete information technology josh(at)agliodbs(dot)com
and data management solutions (415) 565-7293
for law firms, small businesses fax 621-2533
and non-profit organizations. San Francisco