So I was interested, and did a little more digging. I figured I would share the info.
On Sun, 10 Aug 2014 22:48:43 +0100 Mark Bourne <libreoffice-ml.mbou...@spamgourmet.com> wrote: > I don't know to be honest, not having a lot of experience in database > design. I've only ever really used MySQL, which does support enums, > but maybe that's just a MySQL feature. Seems like it is a MySQL specific feature, although PostgreSQL seems to support it. > To me, the set of possible status values just seems more like part of > the database schema design than data entry - you wouldn't generally > add or remove status options (and the application may assign special > meaning to certain statuses, so it may be critical that a specific > set of values is defined). Then again, in some applications being > able to introduce new statuses at any time could be an advantage. Yeah, being able to change these values later is one of the main reasons to use a separate table. Clients almost *always* end up adding or removing some of these. Also, when you have specific functionality tied to some of these statuses, it's always a good idea to add a flag field for it, and make your code check if the flag is on, rather than if the status name matches a specific value, so that if the client ends up deciding (as they invariably will) that actually a second status must also do that thing that they assured you only the one status would ever do, then you simply turn that flag on for the second status, rather than having to change your code base and hunt for all instances of checking for the status by name. Also, then you can localize your status names if you ever want to make your program support other languages. The page here gives some benefits and pitfalls, but I don't see any of the benefits as not being provided by the separate status table solution: https://www.udemy.com/blog/mysql-enum/ This page also gives a few more reasons why you shouldn't use them, and prefers "reference tables", which I called status tables: http://komlenic.com/244/8-reasons-why-mysqls-enum-data-type-is-evil/ While most of those reasons may not apply to this project, the two that do for me are: 1) The statuses are data, and shouldn't be stored as structure. This is a conceptual thing, but it's best to start out thinking the right way. 2) It makes populating the dropdowns way easier, unless you were going to hard-code them, which is admittedly even easier, but can lead to problems down the road when you want to make changes or additions. Just FYI :) Paul -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
