Hi,

I have a question regarding foreign keys in the info classes of the BLL layer.

I have 2 tables Shops and Counties. The Shops table has (amongst others) a foreign key (CountyID) which points to the primary key column in the Counties table. My interface has a GridView on it that allows the user page through a list of Shops. The GridView displays the CountyName field rather than the CountyID field.

What is the (more) correct way for me to define my Info classes? Should my ShopInfo class include a property called CountyName or should it only have a CountyID property? Should it be only at the presentation stage (i.e. when binding to by grid) that I should retrieve the CountyName (i.e. by iterating through a collection of CountyInfo objects)? It strikes me that I could return all the information I need in a single query which could be seen to be more efficient, as opposed to me needing to execute two procedures [or more depending on the number of FKs I have] (i.e. one to get my list of Shops and the other to return a list of Counties).

That said when it comes to creating an instance of my Info class to pass to the method (in my Controller class) which will add a new Shop that the CountyName field would be redundant [presumably bad practice] (i.e. I'd set the CountyID field instead).

Which is the considered to be the best way to proceed?

Thanks,

Norman