[thesite] database: Attributes table

[Warden, Matt]

On Aug 2, rudy had something to say about Re: [thesite] database:...

>> can someone explain exactly what the intended use of
>> Attributes was? is it member attributes, general attributes,
>> or what?
>
>would you like the quickee explanation or the detailed article i've been
>promising for a year or so to write?

I dunno, which one is this?  =)

>   attribute  ---- 1-m ---- membattr ---- m-1 ---- member
>
>sample attributes:  url, phone, icq#, photo

Yeah, I got that...

>membattr was originally shown in early data model diagrams as having a pk
>consisting of the concatenated fk's to member and attribute -- that's
>wrong, as we do want multiple occurrences of the same concatenated fk's (a
>member can list more than one url, for example), so membattr has its own
>sequence-generated pk
>
>helps?

Not really.

Basically, I have a similar idea I want to apply to something other than
member. I was to add attributes to something else, and I was wondering if
the attribute table was only for member attributes. It looks like it
is. If so, I can do one of two things:

(a) add a column (and maybe a separate lookup table) speciying attribute
type (what it applies to)
(b) add a separate table for these attributes

(a) will probably break code if this idea is being implemented
anywhere. From the data that is in the database cut i have, it doens't
look like it is. please verify. I'm leaning towards (a) if for no other
reason than it would be hard to name the table for (b) and hae it make
sense to anyone looking at the schema.

This is for feo, btw.


Thanks,

--
mattwarden
mattwarden.com