Can a table contain many fields?

How many fields can a table have?

In Access, you can define up to 255 fields in a table. If you create 255 fields and then delete 10, Access does not release the fields from the internal column count. Also, for every field whose properties you modify, Access creates a new field and does not release the original field from the internal column count.

How many fields is too many for a table?

There is no constraint on number of fields in database theory. A table can be limited to a primary key (even if this primary key is made of 2 fields), meaning that Apocalisp's answer is not very clear.

Can a table have too many columns?

There isn't a number that's too many. That said, it sounds like, based on your description, that you're not dealing with a properly structured table. 180 columns to define a user and 280 columns to define a thing... That can't possibly be normalized or a fact table.

How many fields can a MySQL table have?

MySQL has hard limit of 4096 columns per table, but the effective maximum may be less for a given table. The exact column limit depends on several factors: The maximum row size for a table constrains the number (and possibly size) of columns because the total length of all columns cannot exceed this size.