CODEWITHSUNDEEP
sqldatabasedatabase-designdatabase-schema
MBH
MBH

Reputation: 16609

how to design for database where column number may increase by time?

I am trying to design a database for my app and webservice, Lets say the table for View properties is something like this:

survey

So View has prop_id, x, y, width, height, bg_color, txt_color

And after a while i need to add a new column to this table like:

text_size, has_shadow ...etc

The type of property is dynamic, and the number of properties is dynamic as well.

so how can we design for such kind of extendable databases?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 154

Answers (1)

Tom H
Tom H

Reputation: 47464

When you need a new property, you add a column to your table.

I'm sure that people will suggest that you try to use the EAV (Entity-Attribute-Value) model to accommodate these kinds of database changes, but that's a huge mistake, IMO. There are very, very few instances where that anti-pattern is called for, and this isn't one of them.

If your database needs to now track "text_size" then presumably your application will require changes that deal with this text size. You're going to have to change your application and/or database as it is, so you buy nothing (other than headaches) by using the EAV model.

If you Google EAV then you can find a lot more information on it and why it's a bad idea, but in a nutshell it makes querying your database more difficult and less performant, and makes maintenance more difficult, not easier.

Upvotes: 2

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