Discrepancy in Number of Tables in Database of each Magento Installation of same Version

Question

I am currently using Magento version 1.4.0.0. For different clients, when I install this same version of Magento, I get different number of tables in database of each of the clients.

I think the normal total number of tables is 267, but this prediction may be incorrect. Please correct my statement or mention, regarding the default number of database tables that should get installed for Magento CE version 1.4.0.0.

However, sometimes I get 258 number of tables, sometimes 260 & sometimes 265. It has become a great pain area for me, understanding about the correct number of database tables which should get installed by default. Can somebody please tell me why this is happening for Magento CE version 1.4.0.0?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Edit:-
I often find the Bundle Products related tables or the tables with a suffix of "_idx" missing quite a times.
If Magento database structure of the number of tables depend upon the catalog usage (say of Bundle / Configurable / Grouped), then it will be very much error-prone to every administrator & will be creating more ambiguities to them, for configuring / creating the catalog products.

Answer 1

Magento creates temporary tables for a number of reasons, including re-indexing actions and how your site is configured (e.g. flat catalog, etc). Can you be more specific about which "extra" tables you are seeing? They're likely to be either temporary tables or caching/index tables.

Thanks, Joe