> > > Part of me agrees with you, on a "Pure SQL level". but then why would > > > anyone ever use ENUM or SET? > > > > I wouldn't :-) > > > > IMO, they're abominations that are to be avoided. > > Again, part of me agrees with you. But part of me, particularly the > part that says "our queries need to be optimized as much as possible, > so our customers will be happy," thinks that ENUM and SET are > non-standard, MySQL specific ways to create normalized data without > having an extra table, and thus an extra join, and thus more > computation, and thus a slower query.
That's wrong, if you use "set", the data isn't normalized cause you're storing multiple values in a column. > Tell me, do you also create your own sequences in MySQL instead of > using the AUTO_INCREMENT feature? Because that, too, is an > abomination in the same way. One way to do it is to create an auto-inc table, but this is besides the point for ENUM/SET. > I use ENUM a lot, successfully, and when I want to add another ENUM > value to a table (I never delete one), I have a script that runs a > show table, gets the ENUM field in question, gets all the values, and > alters the table modifying the column with the correct values (all the > current values + the new one). I've never had a problem with it yet > (knock wood). In other words: modifying metadata to adjust the system for data requirements ;-) ... This also means there's no easy way to automate this. -- Martijn Tonies Database Workbench - tool for InterBase, Firebird, MySQL, Oracle & MS SQL Server Upscene Productions http://www.upscene.com Database development questions? Check the forum! http://www.databasedevelopmentforum.com -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
