CODEWITHSUNDEEP
mysqlsqlruby-on-railsnaming-conventions
krebas
krebas

Reputation: 45

Naming convention for SQL tables under certain circumstances

I'm currently creating the database schema for a new Rails project and I want to things right, so I better ask!

Imagine this: I have a table called "articles" and these articles should have tags. The thing I would do now is relatively simple. Create another table called "tags" and a third one called "article_tags". Every article and tag has a unique id and "article_tags" is the mapping table which brings the right article ids and tag ids together.

Tables:

- articles
- tags
- article_tags (mapping)

The "problem" I currently have is this: Not only articles have tags but also my "users" (another table). These tags have to be in two different tables which would then result in some pretty odd naming.

Tables:

- articles
- article_tags (no mapping)
- article_article_tags (mapping???)

- users
- user_tags (no mapping)
- user_user_tags (mapping???)

Do you have any (general) tips how to improve the naming of these tables because what you can see above doesn't make me very happy...

Upvotes: 0

Views: 158

Answers (1)

Thanh
Thanh

Reputation: 8604

I think you can use polymorphic association to do it, something like this:

class User
  has_many :taggings, as: :taggable
  has_many :tags, through: :taggings
end

class Article
  has_many :taggings, as: :taggable
  has_many :tags, through: :taggings
end

class Tagging
  belongs_to :taggable, polymorphic: true
  belongs_to :tag
end

class Tag
end

So you just need 4 tables: users, articles, taggings, tags.

Upvotes: 1

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