RE: RE: [Phpgroupware-developers] Re: phpGroupware database and u ml d ocumentation in wiki?

[Michael Dean]

On Mon, 2003-06-16 at 21:57, Brian Johnson wrote:
> If I want to make an app that has records that link to addressbook records, I 
> want
> to make sure that addressbook checks for the possible existence of my links 
> prior to
> allowing a record to be deleted since that would totaly screw up the 
> integrity of my
> data.  THIS IS A CRITICAL POINT.

Smells like a hook to me...

> Extraploate that to apply to apps other than addressbook (calendar is another 
> one
> that immediately springs to mind) and you can see the benefits of a standard 
> linking
> system for each app to take advantage of.

I don't see any benefit to storing all links in one table.  All I see is
degradation in performance over time as more items are linked.  You will
also have better control of the primary and foreign keys.

> I'm not sure what you mean by hard-wired system, I don't think the linking 
> system
> behind infolog is one. At it's core it is one table that includes five fields 
> (id,
> app_id1, record_id_app1, app_id2, record_id_app2)

I mean don't put all your links in one table.  Make tables specific to
cross referencing the different entities in the system.  You can create
a class to deal with the linking and swap out the table name so you
don't duplicate code.  The smaller table sizes will scale much better in
the long run.

Mike