Take the 2-minute tour ×  Say I have the following tables:    •
person (person_id, name)   • ethnicity (ethnicity_id, name)   •
person_ethnicity (person_id, ethnicity_id)  This would allow me
to define a person to have 0 or more ethnicity AND an ethnicity
to have 0 or more person through the person_ethnicity table.
Now, let's say I have a LOT of these "ethnicity" type tables
where I have to make the same many to many relationship with the
person table. The number of my tables are going to grow pretty
fast.  Is it a good idea to have a table like this instead:    •
foo (person_id, other_table_name, other_table_pk)  An example:
| person_id | other_table_name | other_table_pk | | 1         |
ethnicity        | 1              |  I lose referencial
integrity this way, but would make modeling much easier I think.
Is this approach a good idea or a horrible, horrible idea?
(Also, is there a proper name for the approach I described
above?)  share|improve this question Are you planning on having
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